Physics Commons^™

Stem Club, Camden Jones, Erica Gesner, Amber Gadeken

Honors Expanded Learning Clubs

The goal of this club is to introduce various topics stemming from different fields in science. We hope to excite the students about science and show them how important it is to their everyday lives. This club also aims to provide free education to underserved communities.

Identifying, Analyzing, And Using Discriminatory Variables For Classification Of Neutrino Signal And Background Noise In Multivariate Analysis In The Askaryan Radio Array Experiment, Jesse Osborn

Honors Theses

The Askaryan Radio Array Experiment, located near the South Pole, works to pinpoint specific instances of neutrinos from outside the solar system interacting with nucleons inside the Antarctic ice, emitting radio waves. I have taken data from the ARA stations which is presumed to be background noise and compared it to simulated data meant to look like a neutrino signal. I developed a suite of variables for discrimination between the two data sets, using a computer algorithm to generate a single output variable which can be used to distinguish noise events from signal events. I maximized this discrimination process for …

Electron Beam Dispersion Compensator Using A Wien Filter, Jackson Lederer

Honors Theses

When an electron beam travels through space, it spreads out over time which impedes the ability to work with short electron pulses in the lab. A Wien filter is a device consisting of perpendicular electric and magnetic fields which filters charged particles based on their velocities. For a specific velocity, the two forces from the two fields in the filter cancel each other out letting charges with that velocity travel straight through the filter. Charges moving at other speeds are deflected as they have a net force applied to them from the filter. If a particle is deflected from the …

Spectroscopy Of Neon For The Advanced Undergraduate Laboratory, H. C. Busch, M. B. Cooper, C. I. Sukenik

Physics Faculty Publications

We describe a spectroscopy experiment, suitable for upper-division laboratory courses, that investigates saturated absorption spectroscopy and polarization spectroscopy in a neon discharge. Both experiments use nearly identical components, allowing students to explore both techniques in a single apparatus. Furthermore, because the wavelength of the laser is in the visible part of the spectrum (640 nm), the experiment is well-suited for students with limited experience in optical alignment. The labs nicely complement a course in atomic or plasma physics, provide students with the opportunity to gain important technical skills in the area of optics and lasers, and can provide an introduction …

A Comparison Of Online, Video Synchronous, And Traditional Learning Modes For An Introductory Undergraduate Physics Course, Emily K. Faulconer, John C. Griffith, Beverly Wood, Donna Roberts

Publications

While the equivalence between online and traditional classrooms has been well-researched, very little of this includes college-level introductory Physics. Only one study explored Physics at the whole-class level rather than specific course components such as a single lab or a homework platform. In this work, we compared the failure rate, grade distribution, and withdrawal rates in an introductory undergraduate Physics course across several learning modes including traditional face-to-face instruction, synchronous video instruction, and online classes. Statistically significant differences were found for student failure rates,grade distribution, and withdrawal rates but yielded small effect sizes. Post-hoc pair-wise test was run to determine …

Phys 231: Electric And Electronic Circuits—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Xiaoshan Xu

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

In this portfolio, I employed a backward design teaching approach on the course PHY231 (Electric and Electronic circuit). I first decide the course objectives and choose the teaching strategies and activities emphasizing student engagement and feedbacks. The effectiveness of the teaching strategies and activities are assessed throughout the course; the adjustments are made accordingly. The results are analyzed at the end of the semester. The assessments indicate that the course objectives are fundamentally achieved and the teaching strategies are effective.

The objectives of the course are:

1. Students will reinforce their understanding in electricity and magnetism.
2. Students will learn theory of …

An Ethnographic Study: Becoming A Physics Expert In A Biophysics Research Group, Idaykis Rodriguez

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Expertise in physics has been traditionally studied in cognitive science, where physics expertise is understood through the difference between novice and expert problem solving skills. The cognitive perspective of physics experts only create a partial model of physics expertise and does not take into account the development of physics experts in the natural context of research. This dissertation takes a social and cultural perspective of learning through apprenticeship to model the development of physics expertise of physics graduate students in a research group. I use a qualitative methodological approach of an ethnographic case study to observe and video record the …