EDUC 505 Teaching Physical World (Graduate)

This course serves to inspire 4th – 12th grade teachers in the area of Physical Science, particularly Physics. It will acquaint primarily nonscientists with basic scientific principles governing our world in the areas of motion, heat, sound, electricity, and light not to become experts in physical science, but to gain a modest understanding of how physical science is developed and operates. We will explore ways to communicate and inspire students to hunger for knowledge of science.

At the end of the course, students are expected to have developed:

• An awareness of the basic assumptions and scopes of physical science
• An awareness that the nature of physical science is based on empirical evidence as opposed to intuition, opinion, or consensus
• An understanding of the basic physical laws in some areas of physical science
• The skills to do simple quantitative measurements, analysis, and deduction
• Learn inexpensive and exciting experiments that will encourage and inspire your students to pursue science
• The ability and confidence to teach and demonstrate a scientific experiment

Prerequisite: None