Paul Arpin

Research Interests:

•   Nonlinear optics
•   Ultrafast spectroscopy
•   Energy transfer in natural photosynthetic systems

CURE-E Course: General Physics II (PHYS 202B), first introduced Fall 2023

Project Title: Authentic Learning in Introductory Physics

Physics 202B is an algebra based introductory physics course. Typically, the students are in scientific fields including biology and earth sciences but are not physics majors. It is challenging at that level to contribute to ongoing research. However, they can use an authentic scientific approach in problem solving. The goal of this project will be for students to use an authentic scientific approach to develop an activity and create a video experiment to dispel a misconception in physics pertinent to this course. Students will make their videos and activities available, and I will share with students in a future semester.

The students will be given a list of options of common misconceptions or open-ended question pertinent to the course material e.g.

• “Most of the electric current is used up by the first light bulb in a circuit.” (misconception)
• “A battery always supplies the same total current.” (misconception)
• “Why is there a push to replace incandescent light bulbs with LEDs” (open-ended question)

The students will not be asked to simply answer the questions – they may or may not have an idea of the answer already from course material. They will be asked to create an activity that teaches the idea to a new student.

Todo this, they will be asked to create a testable hypothesis pertinent to the question, develop an experiment or sequence of experiments that tests the hypothesis, make a prediction of the outcome of the experiment, and then demonstrate the experiment in video form (e.g. show a short video with three circuits with current/voltage visible). Finally, they will be asked to describe the outcome of their experiment. They will upload their videos/descriptions to YouTube to be made available to students in future iterations of the course. This will enable future students to represent an external stakeholder.