Resonance is one of the recurring themes in physics and, as such, is important in research applications and in explaining many everyday phenomena. Students often encounter resonance during studies of simple harmonic motion, sound, mechanical waves and AC circuits. Alternatively, or in addition, resonance can be demonstrated in the context of…

Let us now praise famous physicists, and the apparatus named after them, with apologies to the writer of Ecclesiastes. I once compiled a list of about 300 pieces of apparatus known to us as X's Apparatus. Some of the values of X are familiar, like Wheatstone and Kelvin and Faraday, but have you heard of Pickering or Rhumkorff or Barlow? In an…

Techniques are presented for improving the technical writing of chemical engineering students enrolled in an undergraduate laboratory course. The principles of writing covered are adopted from the book, Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace, by Joseph M. Williams: General examples of writing are taken from this book and then are recast into examples…

Sally Smith's contribution to the world of children with learning disabilities is well documented, particularly by the other contributors to this journal. An area deserving attention, but one usually overlooked, is Smith's understanding of the parent's perspective--the challenges of parenting a child with learning disabilities. It was a priceless…

In this article, the author narrates her application of what she learned from her internship at Sally Smith's Lab School of Washington to her new school and shares the favorable impact it had brought on her teaching career. The author shares her first exposure to the powerful effects of Smith's "Live It, Learn It" methodology as she…

A project involving the synthesis of an isomorphic double sulfite series and characterization by classical inorganic chemical analyses is described. The project is performed by upper-level undergraduate students in the laboratory. This compound series is suitable for examining several chemical concepts and analytical techniques in inorganic…

In "Photobacterium," the flavin reductase encoded by "lux"G regenerates the reduced form of flavin mononucleotide (FMN). Reduced FMN is one of the substrates of the luciferase enzyme that catalyzes a light-emitting reaction. A set of experiments, that employs a "lux"G-expression plasmid construct (pGhis) and is suitable for an undergraduate…

This article illustrates details of the planning, building, and improvement phases of a cost-efficient, full-dissection gross anatomy laboratory on a campus of an historically design-centric university. Special considerations were given throughout the project to the nature of hosting cadavers in a building shared amongst all undergraduate majors.…

Knowledge of the three-dimensional anatomy of the bronchopulmonary segments is essential for respiratory medicine. This report describes a quick guide for dissecting the segmental bronchi in formaldehyde-fixed human material. All segmental bronchi are easy to dissect, and thus, this exercise will help medical students to better understand the…

Cherry blossoms last only a very short time, a matter of days, and in Japan that time is special. People in Japan temporarily abandon their work, drop other commitments, and travel long distances to participate in time-honored rituals which enable them to explore, appreciate, and experience the ephemeral beauty of the event, an experience they…

Optimal diet selection, a component of optimal foraging theory, suggests that animals should select a diet that either maximizes energy or nutrient consumption per unit time or minimizes the foraging time needed to attain required energy or nutrients. In this exercise, students simulate the behavior of foragers that either show no foraging…

The techniques of forensic anthropology and pathology can provide new information to increase student interest in studying the structural details of the human skeleton. We present a simplified methodology for assessing skeletal ethnicity, sex, age, and stature. An inexpensive method has been devised for constructing an osteometric board to allow…

In 1964 John Bell proved a theorem allowing the experimental test of whether what Einstein derided as "spooky actions at a distance" actually exist. We will see that they "do". Bell's theorem can be displayed with a simple, nonmathematical thought experiment suitable for a physics course at "any" level. And a simple, semi-classical derivation of…

We developed an inquiry-based biology laboratory exercise in which undergraduate students designed experiments addressing whether material from the neem tree ("Azadirachta indica") altered bean beetle ("Callosobruchus maculatus") movements and oviposition. Students were introduced to the bean beetle life cycle, experimental…

First-year undergraduate physics laboratories are important physics learning environments. However, there is a lack of empirically informed literature regarding how students perceive their overall laboratory learning experiences. Recipe formats persist as the dominant form of instructional design in these sites, and these formats do not adequately…