Hopefully I'm not jumping the gun any. If you intended to respond to my
questions about physical science courses and haven't yet, please do. I'll
update the survey results if I get more responses. A summary of the
responses I received (including my own) is...
1. Do you offer a course in Physical Science?
yes 6
no 2
2. Do you offer a course in Earth Science
yes 5
no 3
3. Text for Physical Science?
Schad, Brooks/Cole Publishing 2
Hewitt's Conceptual Physics
McDermott - Laws and Jackson Publishing
Faughn, Chang and Turk - Saunders Publishing
4. Prerequisites?
none 6
5. Lab?
yes 5
no 1
6. What sciences are included?
physics 6
chemistry 3
meteorology 3
geology 4
astronomy 5
other
7. Do you spend most of your time in physics?
yes 6
no
8. Taught by physics alone or other departments included?
physics alone 6
other departments
9. Include any work on science in general?
yes 5
no 1
Notes on the summary. I took some clarified responses as absolutes. Replies
that a course that falls along the same lines as physical science is offered
were recorded as yes in question 1 for example.
In case you wondered about question 2, I was interested in seeing if their
was any "mutual exclusion" between offering physical science and earth
science. In other words, especially for smaller schools like mine, are
these two course going to be in direct competition and therefore hard to
support at the same time?
It's also nice to know that the responses more or less mirror what we are
doing. I have two issues with our course - the range of non-physics subjects
covered (geology, meterology, etc.) makes for a certian amount of unease
for many of our physics faculty. Even though the subjects are introductory
in nature, they can't always bring as much as they would like to them due to
lack of background. By the same token, we occasionally have a chemist or
geologist teach the course, and when they do, it's the physcics that makes
them uncomfortable.
I am trying to revamp our course so that it takes a selective approach to
topics and tries to encompass what I think of as "scientifc literacy" into
them. The goal is for students to approach a few topics in-depth and see how
science and its processes function as a result. My hope is they'll gain some
of the mental approach to scientific subjects that has been discussed so
much the list.
Since the students in our course are not pursuing careers in science or
technical fields, I don't feel as obligated to make sure they learn every
detail about every science mentioned in the text.
Thanks to everyone who responded.
R. Allen Shotwell
Chair, Science and Math
Ivy Tech State College
Terre Haute, IN