Space Physics in the Undergraduate Curriculum I
Presiding: R M Johnson, UCAR Office of Education and Outreach; C A Morrow, Space Science Institute
ED11A-01 INVITED 08:30h
Space Science in the Undergraduate Curriculum at Florida Institute of Technology
Florida Institute of Technology, in Melbourne Florida, is fairly unique in its emphasis on space science at the undergraduate level. The department of Physics and Space Sciences is also unique in the large number of women undergraduate majors. In this talk I will review the role that space science plays in the undergraduate curriculum at Florida Tech, both in the formal class structure and in undergraduate research. I will also discuss contributions to the undergraduate program by the Center for Integrated Space weather Modeling. Finally, I will summarize lessons learned that may be useful when considering the role that space science can play in undergraduate science education.
ED11A-02 INVITED 08:45h
The Perils of Space: An Introduction to Space Weather for freshman non-science majors at UCLA
A new course was taught Fall 2004 at UCLA on Space Weather for freshman non-science majors. The course fulfilled one of UCLA's General Education Science course requirements. Enrollment was 85 students (the size of the lecture room) and the course was very well received (8.57 out of 9 for "Overall Course Rating"). The course used two books - Carlowicz and Lopez's Storms from the Sun and Suess and Tsurutani's From the Sun. Students self-reported that they read the entire Storms from the Sun and took on-line quizzes each week based on the reading. The course was mostly traditional lecture, though at least weekly we broke into small group discussions or used peer-instruction techniques in the classroom. I also assigned two dorm laboratories. The first required the students to map a dipole magnetic field. They were given a compass and magnet. The second "dorm room lab" was from Space Science Institute's Solarscapes. It required them to estimate the rotation rate of the Sun. On quizzes before the "labs" were given, but after the concept of the labs were discussed, just slightly more than a majority of students were able to answer the following two questions: (1) Draw a dipole magnetic field and (2) How do we know the sun has an average rotation rate of 27 days? These were asked again on the final exam after the labs and essentially 100% of the students were able to answer correctly. I am currently developing additional "dorm room" labs and "Lecture-Tutorials" based on the University of Arizona's Conceptual Astronomy and Physics Education Research Team's efforts in Introductory Astronomy.
http://measure.igpp.ucla.edu/ESS7/index.html
ED11A-03 INVITED 09:00h
Space Science Programs at Embry-Riddle
For the past 17 years, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, FL Campus, has been offering a BS in Engineering Physics that directly addresses student interest in space science and in space systems engineering. This ABET accredited engineering program is a blending of physics and basic engineering that uses a yearlong, capstone, senior design course to focus on realistic space missions and student-build sounding rocket projects. Over the past decade, the total numbers of students enrolled has averaged 160-180. Moreover, since the first class there have been 30 to 40 percent women in attendance; that is quite unusual. Two years ago, our Prescott, AZ Campus began offering the BS in Space Physics. This is a solid applied physics curriculum with upper level courses in astrophysics and space physics. It has also achieved about 1/3-woman student enrollments. In the coming fall term, we will offer this Space Physics program at Daytona Beach as well. We will highlight these two successful BS degree programs and where our alumni have gone.
ED11A-04 09:15h
Space Weather At George Mason University
George Mason University (GMU), located in Fairfax, Virginia has an exciting and rapidly growing set of graduate programs in Astrophysics, Space Weather, Planetary Sciences, and Earth Sciences. The faculty members in these programs are affiliated with the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the School of Computational Sciences (SCS). The synergy between these two departments creates opportunities for learning not found in traditional programs. Our curriculum emphasizes multi-disciplinary science that crosses traditional department boundaries. Space Weather/solar terrestrial physics is one of these multi-disciplinary areas. We expect our students to develop a deep understanding of the Sun, the heliosphere, geospace, and their interactions; we emphasize a systems view. The graduate program in Space Weather at GMU offers degrees at the Masters (M.S.) and Doctoral (Ph. D) levels through the School of Computational Sciences (SCS) and the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS). A wide variety of relevant courses are offered through (SCS) in partnership with (CAS). Students also have the opportunity to do research associated with the Goddard Space Flight Center and the Navel Research Laboratory. For more information on the program see: http://www.scs.gmu.edu/spaceweather/ Undergraduates and people from local industry are also taking some of our courses to further their education in this area. Many of them are finding the lectures directly relevant to their daily work, such as satellite orbit maintenance.
http://www.scs.gmu.edu/spaceweather/
ED11A-05 09:30h
Understanding Space Weather and the Physics Behind It: A Textbook for Undergraduates
The emerging science of space weather has its roots in the fundamental physics taught at the undergraduate level. However most of the textbook support for this new discipline is either at or near the graduate level. The Air Force Research Laboratory and the Air Force Academy are partnering to produce a new introductory undergraduate level textbook. The text is aimed at students with knowledge of core physics: sophomore-level Newtonian mechanics and electricity and magnetism. We anticipate this book will be appropriate for students who are not physics majors but have a technology interest, be they engineers, meteorologists or space professionals. We are including special focus sections to compare and contrast space and terrestrial weather. In this paper we will discuss the organization and contents of the text and the types of problems and examples to be included. We will also discuss the material being developed for instructor support.
ED11A-06 09:45h
Developing a Space Physics Concept Inventory
Misconceptions are deep-seated models that students hold about the way the physical world works. They are an impediment to learning, and they can be best addressed with specifically designed instructional tools and methods. Mapping the dominant misconceptions in a field is critical for the development of research-based teaching and assessment tools in that field, because they make the most reliable distracters in multiple-choice instruments. This paper will describe how we use Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) with unsupervised clustering of the LSA vectors to identify and classify misconceptions in various science disciplines, will present previous results from Astronomy and Biology, and will describe current efforts to develop a Concept Inventory for Space Physics.