Saturday's sessions--Section VII: Science education

Georgia Journal of Science, 2002

9:00 AT-HOME ACTIVITIES FOR ONLINE PHYSICAL SCIENCE CLASSES, John M. Stanford, Mariam W. Dittmann, William H. Lahaise, Ulrike Lahaise and Miachael L. Denniston, Georgia Perimeter College, Lawrenceville, GA 30043. Laboratory exercises are difficult to arrange for online science courses, but activities conducted out at home offer the opportunity to allow the student to gain "hands-on" experience. We present a number of at-home activities designed for use in an online Physical Science course. These activities, aimed at students with minimal science background, utilize easily obtained materials to conduct safe, unsupervised demonstrations of physical principles. Activities designed so far explore simple concepts of measurement, free fall, circular motion, pressure, fluid flow, buoyancy, transverse and longitudinal waves, standing waves, resonance, interference, refraction, dispersion, static electricity, and electrical circuits.

9:15 EMISSION SPECTRUM GIVEN OFF BY AN ASTRONOMY STUDENT, Donna J. Mullenax, Armstrong Atlantic State University, Savannah, GA 31419. The astronomy curriculum at Armstrong Atlantic State University has been changed as a result of the type of students taking the courses and the knowledge they have before and after the class. Most education majors are required to take an upper level science course, and may took ASTR 3100. Unfortunately, this course did not provide the students with the needed information because only stellar astronomy was taught. It was discovered that the students would enter the course not knowing the nine major planets, why we have seasons, and the comparative sizes of the Earth, Moon, and Sun, among other topics. At the end of the semester, the students would still not have learned this material because it was not covered in this course. Many of these same students would then enter a classroom to teach astronomy to elementary students and not know the material themselves. After changing the astronomy curriculum such that three astronomy courses were offered: 2 two-semester sequence introductory courses (ASTR 1010 and 1020) and 1 one-semester upper level course (ASTR 3000). ASTR 3000 would be upper level in number only and would cover solar and stellar astronomy. This provided us with a way to present the necessary material for the future teachers. Now the students still enter the courses with the same misconceptions and wrong ideas, but leave knowing the nine planets, why there are seasons, and that the Moon is smaller than the Sun.

9:30 TEACHING STUDENTS ABOUT ENGINE EFFICIENCY, Richard Summers, Reinhardt College, Waleska, GA 30183. Students in college physics classes were first taken through a unit on the second law of thermodynamics and engine efficiency. Afterwards, they were asked to complete a questionnaire asking what they considered to be a reasonable value of engine efficiency for an actual automobile engine and what factors contribute to efficiency. Subsequently, the students were asked to drive their cars, estimate the work done to keep the car traveling at constant speed, calculate the heat generated by multiplication of heat of conbustion by amount of gas used and, finally, calculate the efficiency as work done divided by heat input. Students are then given another questionnaire on engine efficiency. The lab has a very marked effect on student perception about this topic.

9:45 CALORIMETRY: A 'SYSTEM'-ATIC APPROACH, Roy C. Wood, Armstront Atlantic State University, Savannah, GA 31419. Current physics textbook presentations of calorimetry talk about heat, but leave out work and internal energy, and their relation to the First Law of Thermodynamics (FLT). Textbooks always write Q = mcAT (assuming no phase change) but this is not always true. It will be argued that the correct statement should be DeltaU^sub sys'^ mcDeltaT. Then, the FLT gives, W = DeltaU^sub sys'^, Q = DeltaU^sub sys'^, or 0 = DeltaU^sub sys'^, depending on the choice of system.

10:00 SECTION BUSINESS MEETING

10:30 BRINGING "GREEN CHEMISTRY" TO ORGANIC INSTRUCTIONAL LABORATORIES, Gary G. Stroebel and Richard S. Jones, Augusta State University, Agusta, GA 30904. As part of our continuing efforts to reduce lab waste, as well as to model an important new trend in the chemical manufacturing industry, we have developed instructional experiments which feature: molecular recycling, electrophilic aromatic substitution in aqueous media, and the air oxidation of an aromatic hydrocarbon as a key part of a "closed-loop" of six redox experiments. We have shown the efficacy of this approach to organic synthesis instruction, and to a broadened view of the role of synthetic organic chemistry in today's world. Examples will be discussed, and copies of tested experimental procedures will be available.

10:45 SHOULD BUSINESS REFORM SCIENCE EDUCATION IN GEORGIA? John V Aliff, Georgia Perimeter College, Lawrenceville, GA 30043. Into the "quality of public schools" issue step politicians with quick fixes - "proven" business practices rejected by experts Peter Drucker (Management by Objectives) and W.E. Deming (Quality Management). They are: 1) Determine product quality by inspection - hence, compare school quality by testing teachers and students. Deming opposed maintaining quality by inspection, instead focusing on design. 2) Assume that the quality of the product is not due to defective design, but due to incompetent personnel. Deming rejected making personnel the focus of problem solving. 3) Make schools authority oriented systems in which, paraphrasing Drucker, teachers are treated as unskilled production line workers with little autonomy or pay. 4) Apply a narrow focus on goals. In this case, they are economic. Public education has the long established purpose of educating citizens. Corporate America is concerned about the Math, Science and English skills of their prospective workers. An account of the recent history of educational reform led by business interests in Georgia will be presented.