Laboratory Adaptations for an Undergraduate Optics Initiative

Calvin University, Grand Rapids MI

Investigators

Abstract

Physics (13) A new optics initiative at Calvin College is providing students with marketable technical training in the optical sciences and introduces an optics concentration and an optical- technology minor into the physics curriculum. The programs target students in physics and engineering, as well as pre-service teachers preparing to teach science in high school. Curricular changes include the reconfiguration of several physics courses and the introduction of an intermediate-level course entitled Phys 246: Waves, Optics, and Optical Technology. Based on a mentor/apprentice pedagogical model, this course will make use of a fully integrated lab-plus-lecture format, an approach with which Calvin's science-education specialists have already had great success in courses for pre-service elementary school teachers. The new pedagogical method will also influence the way in which students are mentored in a new upper-level lab course, Phys 383-384: Advanced Optics Laboratory. The project involves adaptations of labs for both the intermediate and the advanced courses, so that the optics initiative can effectively address its two-fold goal of cultivating technological knowledge and skill and providing a fresh model of teaching by hands-on inquiry. The labs are adapted from labs used at other institutions and from the research projects of the PI and Co-PI. The curriculum for Phys 246 is taken largely from a course at the University of Maryland taught by Dr. Wendell T. Hill, who is providing advice on a continuing basis. Certain individual labs (at both intermediate and advanced levels) are based on existing experiments and input from faculty at Caltech, Harvard, Harvey Mudd College, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Still others are a natural outgrowth of the PI's research on laser-cooled and trapped atoms and plasma diagnostics and the Co-PI's research on diode-laser applications and spectroscopy.