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 Huckabay Teaching Fellowship Proposal

Applicant:  Kathryn K.S. Miknaitis
Mentor: Christopher Stubbs

 “The great power conferred on us by science and technology demands great responsibility from each of us to see that the power moves us in humane social directions.  Thus science is far too important to be left to the scientists.”

                                                Art Hobson,  Physics:  Concepts and Connections

Project Motivation and Description

Scientific knowledge today reflects some of the deepest and most profound achievements of the human intellect, and forms the basis for technological advancement.  But advances in science and technology also create some of the most difficult and dangerous problems that face our society.  To confront issues such as global warming, the ethics of genetic engineering, or the responsible stewardship of nuclear waste, we need the public and the future leaders of our society to have both an understanding of the fundamental principles and practices of science, and an understanding of science in the context of social issues.

 The science component of the general education curriculum in U.S. universities is currently playing a substantial, if often unrecognized, role in achieving scientific literacy among our adult population.  College level general science courses are suggested to be an explanation for why, given our well-documented  failures in teaching science in primary and secondary education, the level of scientific literacy among adults in the United States is nevertheless slightly higher than that in comparable nations [1].  If scientists and educators wish to have an immediate impact on socially relevant scientific literacy, the place to  do it is in the general science courses of our universities, and the way to do it is by placing science instruction directly in the context of socially relevant applications [2].

 With this in mind, we propose to develop and teach a course for non-science students on the science and applications of radiation and nuclear physics.  Through this course we hope to explore the ways that basic science education can better equip students not only to understand the natural world and think quantitatively, but also to confront the increasingly complex issues surrounding science and technology in our society.

 The subject of radiation is ideal for this purpose:  the physics of the nucleus and of radiation is fundamental to understanding what we are made of, how the sun works, where the elements came from, and how the universe began and evolved.  But the same science is also connected with some of the most terrifying events of the last century, and we are still far from seeing the full effects of the development of nuclear technology on the global scale. 

 The proposed course will teach the basic science of the nucleus, of radiation and radioactivity, and of the effects of radiation on matter and living tissue.  We will then apply this knowledge to the critical consideration of a wide variety of high-interest “real world” topics, such as food irradiation, medical imaging, nuclear energy, the threat of nuclear proliferation, and the challenges of managing nuclear waste.  Applied topics will be discussed seminar-style, encouraging students to explore controversial issues from a variety of perspectives.  Central themes will include what constitutes scientific evidence for a conclusion, how to evaluate and weigh risk, who is responsible for overseeing and guiding science, and what lessons we can learn from nuclear technology about the social implications of other technologies.

 In addition to instilling an appreciation for how physics helps us to understand the world, we hope to give students the knowledge to better understand current issues related to the science, to introduce them to the principles and methods of scientific endeavors, and to encourage critical reasoning skills in the consideration of controversial subjects related to science and technology. 

 Project Implementation and Assessment

 This project will benefit from collaboration with faculty who represent many different areas of expertise.  The course will be developed by the fellow and mentor during the quarters preceding the proposed instruction of the course during Winter 2004, with input from faculty experts on nuclear energy, faculty responsible for the Physics Department’s current general science offerings, CIDR consultants, and others.  With help from the Director and staff of the Center for Experimental Nuclear Physics and Astrophysics on the U.W. campus, we will develop a small set of participatory laboratory exercises that can give students a feel for the experimental nature of scientific study for one or two “lab days” during the quarter.  Instructional materials will be drawn from existing curricula at other institutions, from materials used in the radiation safety courses here at the University, from general physics textbooks, and from “real life” sources such as newspaper articles, government reports, and documentaries.  Course materials will be provided to the Physics Department for possible future use.

 Assessment of the success of the scientific instruction portion of the course will be accomplished using one or more ungraded “pre-tests” of student knowledge, followed by comparison to quiz results after instruction.  Assessment of the success of the critical reasoning and applied components of the course will be accomplished through ongoing review of student written assignments in response to the applied material.  Ongoing assessment of the fellow as an instructor will take place using Catalyst web-based feedback tools and classroom visits by the mentor.  A full review of the success of the project will take place following its conclusion, and will result in a paper for submission to an appropriate journal.

References

 [1] Miller J, “Civic scientific literacy: A necessity in the 21st century” Federation of American Scientists Public Interest Report 55 No. 1 3-6, 2000.

[2] Hobson, Art, “Teaching relevant science for scientific literacy” Journal of College Science Teaching pp. 238-243, 2001.

[3] Hobson, Art, Physics:  Concepts and Connections 2^nd Edition, Prentice Hall Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 1999.

[4] American Association for the Advancement of Science Project 2061 web page: http://www.project2061.org/

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