Over the past dozen years Davidson College has produced some of the most widely used interactive curricular materials for the teaching of introductory and advanced physics courses. These materials are based on Java applets called Physlets and the new Open Source Physics (OSP) programs and applications. We will focus on three distinct areas: teaching introductory physics with Physlet-based materials, modeling in intermediate classical mechanics with Easy Java Simulations (Ejs), and teaching advanced courses (quantum mechanics and general relativity) with OSP-based materials. Participants are encouraged to bring laptops with a CD drive to the break out sessions for hands-on explorations of Physlets, Ejs and OSP.
Partial funding was provided by NSF grant DUE-0442581.
Learning science is learning to develop, test, and apply models to explain or predict natural phenomena. Wells, Hestenes, and Swackhamer point out that introductory science courses are organized around a small number of basic models that are adapted to various contexts. Constant acceleration, simple harmonic motion, Newton's universal law of gravitation, and conservation laws form the core of these models. Developing these models is closer to laboratory experiments and is more likely to provide the student with a novel perspective on the behavior of a system but programming models can be a labor intensive task for both students and faculty. Many shy away from computer modeling with traditional programming tools. This talk describes tools that address this technical barrier. We describe how the Easy Java Simulations authoring and modeling tool enables the modeling cycle and present a collection of ready-to-use models and associated curricular material developed by the Open Source Physics Project. Examples will be distributed on CD and are available from:
http://www.opensourcephysics.org/.
Partial funding was provided by NSF grant DUE-0442581.
The premise of Easy Java Simulations (Ejs) modeling is that when students are not actively involved in modeling they lose out on much of what can be learned from computer simulations. Although the modeling method can be used without computers, the use of computers allows students to study problems that are difficult and time consuming, to visualize their results, and to communicate their results with others. Ejs is a free open-source Java application that simplifies the modeling process by breaking it into activities: (1) documentation, (2) modeling, and (3) interface design. The Ejs program and examples of models will be available on CD. Ejs models, documentation, and sample curricular material can also be downloaded from Open Source Physics and Easy Java Simulations websites:
http://www.opensourcephysics.org and http://www.um.es/fem/Ejs
Partial funding for this work was obtained through NSF grant DUE-0442581.
Easy Java Simulations, Ejs, is a free and open source tool for creating Java simulations. Unlike other software programs designed to make programming easier for programmers, Ejs was created for use by teachers and students of all levels and abilities. The structure of the Ejs environment allows users to focus on the process of building simulations, and therefore the underlying physics, as opposed to the technical aspects of building simulations. We will show the Ejs programming environment and how it is used to create a simple simulation from introductory mechanics and describe how we use it in our classes at Davidson. We will also show examples of completed simulations from introductory and advanced mechanics such as: free fall, simple harmonic motion, the simple pendulum, and damped and driven motion.
Partial funding for this work was obtained through NSF grant DUE-0442581.
Over the past dozen years Davidson College has produced some of the most widely used interactive curricular materials for the teaching of introductory and advanced physics courses. These materials are based on Java applets called Physlets and the new Open Source Physics (OSP) programs and applications. We will focus on three distinct areas: teaching introductory physics with Physlet-based materials, modeling in intermediate classical mechanics with Easy Java Simulations (Ejs), and teaching advanced courses (quantum mechanics and general relativity) with OSP-based materials. Participants are encouraged to bring laptops with a CD drive to the break out sessions for hands-on explorations of Physlets, Ejs and OSP.
Partial funding for this work was obtained through NSF grant DUE-0442581.