Increasingly, the physics community is attending to issues of equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI), both in language and action. We are more publicly recognizing our individual responsibilities as physicists to address social injustice and systemic oppression. To this end, our physics classrooms are key levers for action. While we have made…

A significant challenge physics faculty face teaching introductory labs is engaging students in authentic science practices. Another has been highlighted given the current global pandemic--how to engage students in our laboratory courses while maintaining appropriate social distancing and hygiene standards. We have chosen to answer these…

The need to integrate computation into the physics curriculum has long been established: using simulations and computational modeling can enhance students' conceptual understanding, and the computational skills students acquire are both useful and necessary in their careers. However, making changes to an established physics course is a challenge…

When Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts asked in the 2016 affirmative action case "Fisher v. University of Texas," "what unique perspective does a minority student bring to the physics classroom?" the Equity and Inclusion in Physics and Astronomy group replied by rejecting the premise of the question itself.…

After the passage of the U.S. National Quantum Initiative Act in December 2018, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) recently assembled an interagency working group and conducted a workshop titled "Key Concepts for Future Quantum Information Science Learners" that focused on…

For the past two years, the Foundations in Physics and Mathematics (FPM) summer program has been held at Indiana University in order to fulfill two goals: provide additional physics and mathematics instruction at the high school level, and provide physics graduate students with experience and autonomy in designing curricula and teaching courses.…

The idea of teaching physics to ninth-graders, known as "Physics First," has become more and more popular among physics educators in this country. However, introducing ninth-grade physics has been an uphill battle; such a change has a major impact on the students, parents, teachers, and the school administration. Switching to Physics First affects…

Discusses experience of teaching a "Search in Science" course to college nonscience majors entitled "From Myth to Mechanism: A Study of Man's Changing Concepts of the Universe from Early Mythological Beliefs to the Development of Modern Scientific Laws." Historical explanation of the development of physical concepts is stressed. (CC)

Suggests criteria for constructing a "basic" physics program based on such premises as limited class time, time and practice needed for skill development/understanding structuring of subject matter, and choices of content and approach. Long-range objectives related to the list of premises are discussed. (SK)

Discusses the emergence of chaos as a major scientific subject and its place in historical, scientific, and technological context. Three sections provide (1) an overview of the scientific paradigm; (2) a review of the ideology of classical mechanics; and (3) examples of classical systems behaving in peculiar, nonintuitive manners. (MDH)

Describes the development of a physics course based on the use of examples from the real world, a contract method of assigning work and the Harvard Project Physics course. (TS)