The use of systems in many introductory courses is limited and often implicit. Modeling two or more objects as a system and tracking the center of mass of that system is usually not included. Thinking in terms of the center of mass facilitates problem solving while exposing the importance of using conservation laws. We present below three…

With the introduction of "Next Generation Science Standards" ("NGSS"), teachers have been called to find meaningful and engaging ways to teach science content while incorporating engineering practices and, to a lesser extent, computing and computational thinking. The task becomes even more complex when they also have to…

Models are essential to the learning and doing of science, and systems thinking is key to appreciating many environmental issues. The National Science Education Standards include models and systems in their unifying concepts and processes standard, while the AAAS Benchmarks include them in their common themes chapter. Hyerle and Marzano argue for…

The dynamics of braking of wheeled vehicles is studied using the Coulomb approximation for the friction between road and wheels. The dependence of the stopping distance on the mass of the vehicle, on the number of its wheels and on the intensity of the braking torque is established. It is shown that there are two regimes of braking, with and…

The chaos theory of careers draws together a number of themes in current theory and research. This article applies some of these themes to career counseling. The chaos theory of careers is outlined, and a conceptual framework for understanding assessment and counseling issues that focuses on convergent and emergent qualities is presented. Three…

Professional school counselors find themselves working in school organizations that are antiquated and are not a natural fit to the actual work of the counselors. However, lessons being learned from the new sciences and open systems perspectives may shed a great deal of light as to how schools can be restructured in order to best utilize the…

Discusses the need to include studies of reliability and maintainability during the design of any system. Topic areas addressed include availability calculations, complex systems and standby redundancy, availability and malfunction levels, design techniques, fault trees, functional maintenance, and others. (DH)

Suggests that electronics be taught using a systems approach, although this reverses the order of stages in the traditional approach by studying complete systems first. Also describes the hardware needed to implement a systems approach and the four stages of a course in which the equipment is used. (JN)

One of the difficulties encountered by novice problem solvers in introductory physics is in the area of problem solving. It has been shown in other studies that poor problem solvers are affected by the surface aspects of the problem in contrast with more efficient problem solvers who are capable of constructing a mental model of the physical…