Toward better physics labs for future biologists

American Journal of Physics

Volumn 82, Issue 5, 2014, Pages

  Moore, K ^a   Giannini, J ^b   Losert, W ^a,b  

^a University of Maryland   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84929103362     PISSN: 00029505     EISSN: 19432909     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1119/1.4870388     Document Type: Article

References (35)

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2. National Research Council, A New Biology for the 21st Century (Nat'l Academy Press, 2009).
3. AAMC/HHMI, Scientific Foundations for Future Physicians: Report of the AAMC-HHMI Committee (2009).
4. AAAS, Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education: A Call to Action (AAAS Press, 2011).
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13. Some published material examining interdisciplinary content shifts exists in a Cell Biology Education-Life Sciences Education special issue on Integrating Physics and Biology Education (June 2013, volume 12, no. 2), though none of these articles specifically address changes in laboratory curricula.
14. A wiki archiving these IPLS lab materials is accessible at . References at this site (accessed Feb. 6th, 2014) include: Haverford College's medical physics teaching labs , MIT's Bioengineering Labs , Caltech's Physical Biology of the Cell Lab , U.C. Berkeley's Physics Advanced Lab , Princeton's Integrated Science Program , and Mt. Holyoke College's Intro Physics Labs .
15. A good example of a large-scale reformed content curriculum is Johns Hopkins' Biological Physics Labs, .
16. UMD's Scientific Community Lab materials available at .
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18. Rutgers' Investigative Science Learning Environment labs can be found at .
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30. NSF Directorate for EHR Review of Undergraduate Education, Shaping the future: New expectations for undergraduate education in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology (May 1996).
31. See supplementary material at http://dx.doi.org/10.1119/1.4870388E-AJPIAS-82-018495 for a description of all lab activities. Curricular materials for the NEXUS/Physics labs are available at by following the "NEXUS/Physics Labs, 2013-2014" link.
32. Since random (and diffusive) motion is described by r2 proportional to t, this logarithmic plot will have a slope of 1. Directed motion, where r is proportional to t, and thus r2 is proportional to t2, will have a log(r2) vs. log(t) plot with a slope of 2. Confined (trapped) motion, which is sub-diffusive, will have a slope less than 1.
33. E.F. Redish, J.M. Saul, and R.N. Steinberg, "Student Expectations in introductory physics," Am.J. Phys. 66(3), 212-224 (1998).10.1119/1.18847
34. A. Schoenfeld, "Learning to Think Mathematically: Problem Solving, Metacognition, and Sense-Making in Mathematics," in Handbook of Research in Mathematics Teaching and Learning, edited by D.A. Grouws (MacMillan, New York, NY, 1992), pp. 334-370.
35. M.R. Villasenor and E. Etkina, "Reformed physics instruction through the eyes of students," AIP Conf. Proc. 883, 105-108 (2007).10.1063/1.2508702