The difficulty in covering chemical engineering concepts using traditional lectures and whiteboard teaching approaches means today's students' learning demands are unfulfilled, so alternate methods are needed. Desktop learning modules (DLMs) are designed to show industrial fluid flow and heat transfer concepts in a standard classroom so students…

The time evolution of quantum states is arguably one of the more difficult ideas in quantum mechanics. In this article, we report on results from an investigation of student understanding of this topic after lecture instruction. We demonstrate specific problems that students have in applying time dependence to quantum systems and in recognizing…

The idea of sending students and the general public on a walk through a scale model of the solar system in an attempt to instill an appreciation of the relative scales of the sizes of the objects compared to the immense distances between them is certainly not new. A good number of such models exist, including one on the National Mall in…

Inquiry. It's a word that every teacher has heard repeatedly since the publication of the National Science Education Standards. Given the challenges of teaching core content, preparing students for inquiry may seem like a daunting task. Yet there are many different approaches to inquiry. Examining the nature of the scientific method and reducing…

This packet contains a unit on teaching about volcanoes. The following question is addressed: How do volcanoes affect human life? The unit covers approximately three weeks of instruction and strives to present volcanoes in an holistic form. The five subject areas of art, language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies are integrated into…