In traditionally taught introductory science courses, students are often presented with laboratory guidelines written in a "recipe" style which tends to stifle students' creativity and interest. The purpose of the experiments in this manual is to provide opportunities for students to exercise their creativity, pique their curiosities, and to aid them in developing a deep conceptual understanding of some of the fundamental laws of nature, as well as to give students a first-hand acquaintance with the process of scientific research. Students cannot be expected in two or three hour labs to discover and formulate the scientific laws and theories which have taken hundreds of years to discover and refine. Yet in an environment where exploration is encouraged, prodded by instructors' questions, not answers, students can be guided in their own discoveries of some of the basic laws and principles of science. Science education research has shown that this exploration and discovery approach to learning science is more effective than the traditional "cookbook" style.

Although there are many first-rate laboratory manuals, the need to incorporate recent development in hand-held and computer technologies as well as methods garnered from science education research into an introductory physics course led to the development of this manual, and the restructuring of the Fundamentals of Physical Science (PHS 110) course at Arizona State University. The re-designed course closely links learning in the laboratory with learning in a large classroom environment, and emphasizes student-centered learning through students' experiments and discussions, both formal and informal.

The experiments in this manual have been classroom tested at Arizona State University during 1996-99 as the laboratory component of the introductory physical science course. The course for which these experiments were created fulfills a four credit general studies requirement for non-science majors at a large university. The course is structured in the traditional format of three 50 minute full-class meetings in a large lecture hall each week plus break-out labs for two hours each week. These weekly labs all meet between the Monday and Wednesday full-class meetings. Thus all students are introduced to a key concept in one of the inquiry-oriented experiments from this manual prior to class discussion.

Interaction in the large classroom environment is facilitated by the use of the electronic network system, Personal Response System, and ConcepTests. Thus the large class is led in a student-centered collaborative-learning environment emphasizing group discussion, some hands-on experiments and problem-solving. Take-home labs substitute for the traditional physics problems, and extend the hands-on exploratory, discovery-learning components of the course. A seperate manual, Scientific Inquiry (http://acept.asu.edu/courses/phs110) , contains the take-home labs, which are accompanied by a Science Kit comprised of inexpensive materials used in the take-home labs. PHS110 is intended as a basic physical science course for students studying to become elementary teachers.

In designing the experiments in this manual, we were influenced by science educators, foremost among them David Hestenes (ASU physicist), Anton Lawson (ASU biologist), and Lillian McDermott (University of Washington physicist). The revision of the ASU PHS 110 course and the development of this manual were part of the project funded by the National Science Foundation called the Arizona Collaborative for Excellence in the Preparation of Teachers (ACEPT). We have collaborated in developing and classroom testing this inquiry-oriented, student-centered, standards-based course for three years, and have benefited greatly by conversations with our science education colleagues in the ACEPT project. Classroom testing and development of the labs in this manual were done with the able assistance of ASU physics graduate students, Kendal Bond, Seth Cohen, Kathleen Falconer, Arlinda Hill, Quinton Hurst, Amy Johnson and Shengjun Wang. Their input and suggestions were valuable and contributed significantly to improvment of the experiments. Technical advice and assistance were contributed by the ASU Department of Physics and Astronomy staff, Timothy Cook, Iwonna Rzanek, and Heidi Allen. We gratefully acknowledge their interest, expert advice and assistance.


Susan Wyckoff and Steven Beeson
Department of Physics and Astronomy
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ, 85287-1504
wyckoff@asu.edu
http://acept.asu.edu