Technological Enhancements to Popular Physics Courses for Non-Science Majors

该项目正在升级物理入门课的实验室部分。自从Rosary学院的教职员工修订了1987年的课程大纲以来，数量惊人的非理科专业的学生正在选择气象学、音乐物理、能源-城市供需，甚至普通物理课程，以满足一学期的理科课程要求。为了应对这些经常患有数学焦虑、以前几乎没有科学背景的学生提出的挑战，自然科学系的教职员工正在设计新的实验，包括将一些设备与计算机接口。学生将带着一些以前的计算机经验来上课，通过改进数据收集，实验室结果应该更一致，从而使科学方法更容易理解。随着卫星天线和数字化观测气象站的增加，气象和能源课程正在使用最先进的方法，通过学习这些信息，学生们对他们的日常世界有了更好的了解。对于音乐物理和普通物理的学生来说，增加了能够与计算机接口的音乐合成器和波形分析器，改进了标准实验中的数据收集，并增加了合成和分析现场音乐的新可能性。这种计算机化的仪器设备对讲座产生了影响，能够提供更好和更中肯的视听内容。该学院正在用等额的资金来匹配这一奖项。

This project is upgrading the laboratory component for introductory physics classes. Since the faculty of Rosary College revised the curriculum of 1987, a surprising number of non-science majors are selecting the courses of Meteorology, the Physics of Music, Energy- Urban Supply and Demand, and even General Physics to satisfy the one semester science course requirement. To meet the challenge presented by these students often suffering from mathematics anxiety and with little previous science background, the faculty of the Natural Science Department is designing new experiments, including interfacing some equipment with computers. The students will come to the classes with some previous computer experience and by improving data gathering, the laboratory results should be more consistent thereby making science methods more comprehensible. With the addition of a satellite dish and a digitized observational weather station, the meteorology and energy classes are using state- of-the-art methods, and, through study of this information , students obtain a better understanding of their everyday world. For the students in Physics of Musics and General Physics, the addition of a musical synthesizer and wave analyzer capable of interfacing with a computer improves data gathering in standard experiments and adds new possibilities of synthesizing and analyzing live music. This computerized instrumentation impact on the lectures with the capability of better and more pertinent audiovisuals. The college is matching the award with an equal amount of funds.