General Information about Hands On Physics
Project Goals and Objectives
Hands On Physics is developing a new kind of science course that responds
to the new standards by providing a rich, inquiry-based approach to physics.
The course features a sequence of hands-on investigations that involve building
sophisticated experiments out of inexpensive apparatus. This course should
be a refreshing alternative to any standard physics course at the high school
or college level. Our immediate goal is to develop and disseminate physics
material for technical programs at the high school and college level that
is adapted to the needs of students preparing for advanced technical careers
by being heavily experimental, project-oriented, technological, low-cost,
practical to implement, and effective for all students.
The materials have the following objectives:
- The development of reasoning skills in a physics context.
- Easy and flexible implementation.
- Sufficient material for double physics/technology courses at both pre-college
and college levels.
- Articulation between high school, college and technical programs.
- Proven appeal to underrepresented students and practicality in disadvantaged
settings.
The Hands On Physics Approach
The course revolves around a series of student projects and investigations.
In the process of doing the projects, students will gain essential experimental
skills and build valuable instrumentation for their labs. Instructors will
have a choice of projects to tailor a course to their level and curriculum
goals. Sufficient material will be available for a two-year high school-college
sequence with strong articulation with a variety of technical fields.
Projects are selected to illustrate the major topics in physics in the approximate
order usually covered in courses, to develop measuring and analysis capacity,
to build student sophistication and independence, and to include options
for articulation with various technical areas. Several of the projects have
an environmental focus and offer the possibility of engaging students in
important scientific studies of the environment. The projects illustrate
important physics concepts, resulting in approximate measurements of fundamental
constants, and treating mechanics, gravity, sound, waves, electricity and
magnetism, the electromagnetic spectrum, wave-particle duality, and nuclear
physics. The projects will introduce advanced technical topics such as the
use of computers for measurement and control (MBL), computer-based data
analysis and modeling, telecommunications, and instrumentation based on
VLSI.
The HOP projects will require instrumentation that students will build from
electronics kits. Part of the importance of this approach is that students
get experience using sophisticated electronics and computer concepts at
a fraction of the cost of commercial products-students learn through construction
while saving the costs of assembled instruments. The materials required
will cost approximately $50 per student plus $200 per lab. All the equipment
is re-usable, so except for breakage, this sum can be amortized over several
years.
Each project will introduce new electronics and measurement techniques most
of which will be used in later projects. This will, perforce, involve students
in some elementary electronics concepts and construction techniques. This
is good physics and illustrates a "can do" attitude that is also
part of physics. The electronics may be unfamiliar to many teachers, so
we will provide video support and adopt a qualitative, concept-oriented
approach that minimizes electronics formalism.
Spreadsheets will be used as the primary graphing, analysis, and modeling
tool throughout. Again, this forces some early attention to skill development,
but results in a powerful, educationally sound approach that is also economical.
We will select a dual-platform spreadsheet in the $40 per computer range
to support.
Typical projects require three weeks, but because of the need to construct
our own electronics, the initial projects will take longer. The sequence
of projects will touch each of the major physics topics in the order usually
used in textbooks, so it will be familiar to faculty and easy to introduce
as a course supplement or a self-contained course. The required electronic,
instrumentation, and analysis skills will need to build across the sequence.
A final, open ended, student-generated, collaborative project is an important
part of our design. It colors an entire course if students anticipate that
they have the responsibility to acquire sufficient skills and knowledge
to do something new. Realizing that many independent projects will be extensions
of the ones in the course, we will include "hooks" and suggestions
for further work in all projects. The HOP project will support several activities
to encourage completion of these student projects, including a collection
of project ideas, on-line project consultation for teachers, on-line publishing
of project reports and abstracts, a peer review process, and, if we can
raise additional funding, prizes.
This curriculum design is highly consistent with current pre-college curriculum
reform as described in the AAAS (1993) and NRC (1993) standards and implemented
in the NSTA SSC project. All these reform efforts call for the usual physics
content but in less detail so that there can be more emphasis on inquiry,
projects, and interdisciplinary activities. The requirement of the complete
performance of an original, collaborative scientific investigation, from
inception to reporting and criticizing, is explicitly part of the AAAS and
NRC standards and one of the most difficult for most schools to implement.
This agreement between HOP and the new standards is not altogether accidental,
since Bob Tinker is deeply involved in shaping the standards efforts.
Project Materials
The materials developed by the Hands On Physics project will have the following
characteristics:
- An emphasis on student collaboration and communication.
- A central role for student projects and investigations.
- New content selected on the basis of interest and accessibility to the
target audience.
- The use of low-cost materials, kits, and student construction.
- The use of MBL, telecomputing, and modern instrumentation.
- The project will not result in a single course, but rather, a set of
excellent, multi-media materials and resources for teaching project-centered
physics that can be fashioned into a multitude of courses that meet the
objectives of the project .
Material Criteria
The material we develop will have the following characteristics. It is impossible
for each unit to do well on each of these measures, but, taken as a whole,
the units will excel in these areas.
- Engaging.
- We want the experiments to draw in students by being interesting and
attractive. Units will start with a motivationing issue. To avoid turning
off girls, we want to avoid military themes and violence, while emphasizing
human, personal issues, and themes of learning, rescue, safety, nurture,
and nature.
- Relevant.
- The first target is students who are in technical and vocational programs
and would like to see applications to medicine, technical occupations, engineering,
and everyday life.
- Problem-solving.
- We want students to learn to think and solve problems themselves. This
need will be balanced by the need for their experiments to work. Wherever
feasible, we will show the reasoning behind designs, ask questions about
alternatives, and suggest variations.
- Learning Cycle.
- Each unit progresses through a sequence consisting of 1) exploration
(messing about, feeling the effect, looking at demos), 2) experimentation
(the core experiment), 3) explanation (data analysis and some of the underlying
theory), 4) extension (applications of the core ideas to new situations,
additional open-ended experiments), and 5) evaluation (student and teacher
evaluation of learning.)
- Divergent.
- Each unit contains a structured core experiment that imparts a set of
skills and concepts. The unit then moves on to more open-ended activities,
challenges, and project ideas. "Variations" represent relatively
simple variations of the core theme (additional measurements, the same experiment
with new materials, alternative measurement techniques, etc.). "Challenges"
are divergent paths that are further from the core, such as a different
experiment addressing a similar topic.
- Sequential.
- The student electronic construction ability and resulting instrumentation
capacity grows throughout the curriculum. In the beginning, we assume only
a DMM and capacitor, by the end, students have all kinds of electronics
including a high-voltage power supply, electrometer, and, possibly, a digital
counter.
- Bi-Level.
- We will have a "simpler" and "harder" unit in most
major physics areas. These would address high/vocational-school and two-year
college students, respectively. They could also be used serially if a teacher
wanted more emphasis in one topic.
- Environmental theme.
- We will have a sub-theme of environmental measurements running through
many units. We know students find this is engaging and we have a lot of
materials from which to draw.
- Network-ready.
- Hands On Physics is being developed in hypermedia format, with hot buttons
linking to animations, video, drawings, etc.
Unit Format
Each six-week module will have the following format:
Context
This section provides the motivation for the project/study. It can be a
question (could you get out of a burning building on a bungee cord?), apparent
paradox (Why don't 8 trumpets sound 64x as loud as one?), or simply a description
of something interesting in typical students' culture (synthesizer, cake
rising). Propose pictures, video clips, drawings, etc. Related context-setting
ideas might be demos the teacher might do and we might put on video, readings,
video clips, software, etc.
Messing Around
Some related messing around is an essential way for student to become familiar
with the phenomena and issues. Some activities will involve low-tech string
and sticky tape experiments. We will suggest several possible experiments;
some students may have already done some of these and a teacher can assign
different ones to groups of students. The experiments will be explained
through drawings, so even if a student does not do every one, he/she can
get some of the idea through the illustrations.
The Core Experiment
This will be fully illustrated, and motivated by clear relation to the previous
sections. An MBL alternative will be presented, if it makes sense. The directions
will be complete, but wherever feasible, questions should be asked and motivation
for specific points provided ("You need a hard, smooth bearing surface.
We provide a pearl. Why is that good? What alternatives are there?) We will
make copious use of illustrations, and explain details on the illustration,
not in straight text.
Extensions
Information
Concepts
For further information, please contact:
Bruce Seiger or Hilton Abbott
37 Thoreau Street
Concord, MA 01742
Phone: (508) 371-3487
E-mail: bseiger@concord.org
E-mail: habbott@concord.org