Cross-disciplinary fields such as biotechnology require chemical engineers and non-engineers to routinely work together, thus creating a need for non-engineers to learn chemical engineering. But limited knowledge on non-engineers' learning preferences and the lack of pedagogical methods to teach non-engineers restricts the opportunities available…

Purpose: Swallowing impairment, or dysphagia, is a known contributor to reduced quality of life, pneumonia, and mortality in Parkinson's disease (PD). However, the contribution of tongue dysfunction, specifically inadequate pressure generation, to dysphagia in PD remains unclear. Our purpose was to determine whether lingual pressures in PD are (a)…

In an article in this journal, it was shown that air resistance could never be a significant source of error in typical free-fall experiments in introductory physics laboratories. Since projectile motion is the two-dimensional version of the free-fall experiment and usually follows the former experiment in such laboratories, it seemed natural to…

Many teachers have had students ask the proverbial question, "When will I ever use this in my life?" In the sciences, especially physics, teachers seem to battle this torrent of indifference continually. Although many areas of our students' lives can distract them from their academic pursuits, we as teachers must be introspective in…

Popular demonstrations commonly use stretched spandex fabric to illustrate the way in which curved spacetime mimics the force of gravity in general relativity. There are significant potential conceptual pitfalls to such an approach. In particular, it obscures the fact that most of what we ordinarily feel as gravity is due to the warping of time…

Open-ended problems are a very effective tool for engaging student interest. In this paper, we report a physics activity that provides insight into the lifestyle of theropod dinosaurs. This activity generates great enthusiasm among the students since virtually everyone is interested in dinosaurs. In the spirit of the "spherical cow"…

The acceleration of a vehicle or a bicycle is commonly used in elementary physics courses to illustrate problems concerning Newton's laws of motion when friction forces are involved. The maximum possible acceleration is rarely discussed, although it is of interest to consumers and racing car enthusiasts, and it is sometimes questioned by students.…

Research shows that energy is a concept that is difficult to understand despite different teaching approaches existing. One of the problems is seen in its rather abstract definition. In contrast, we present an approach that activates students' everyday life experiences and uses these to develop a scientific understanding by introducing energy as a…

This paper describes a fascinating connection between the physics of music and the famous chord in the dissonant rhythmic section of Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring" (1913). The analysis of Stravinsky's chord will draw from the physics of harmonics, musical intervals, mathematics, and cognitive psychology. This highly interdisciplinary…

In this paper I argue for using the concept of "contribution" to activity to understand student engagement with science education and its transformational potential in formal settings. Drawing on transformative activist stance, I explain "contribution as how individuals take part in and transform collective practices according to…

The relationship between physics and mathematics is reviewed upgrading the common in physics classes' perspective of mathematics as a toolkit for physics. The nature of the physics-mathematics relationship is considered along a certain historical path. The triadic hierarchical structure of discipline-culture helps to identify different ways in…

The aim of this study is to reveal the high school students' images of physicists. Participants of this study consisted of 85 students in a high school in a province center on the East Black Sea Region of Turkey. The data were obtained by adapting the "Draw A Scientist Test" developed by Chambers (1983) and updated by Song & Kim…

Teaching critical thinking (CT) to prospective teachers has been a concern for a long time, and prospective teacher training becomes an appropriate period for interventions that promote CT ability. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a model of learning that accommodates aspects of prior knowledge, motivation, and CT. This study aims to develop…

Many concepts in astrophysics research can be difficult for a lay individual to understand or to comprehend their importance. One such example concept is the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, which detects high-energy neutrinos at the South Pole in Antarctica. The observatory uses information from detected neutrinos originating deep in outer space to…

[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Curriculum Development: Theory into Design.] A level of curricular design, called "design tactics," is identified to fill a gap in the research literature between the broad principles that guide curriculum development and the detailed writing of specific activities and lessons. The use of…