Physics for Life Science Students: Instructor Resources

Dawn Meredith (UNH Department of Physics) dawn.meredith@unh.edu

Jessica Bolker (UNH Department of Biological Sciences) jbolker@unh.edu

Christopher Shubert (UNH Department of Physics)

James Vesenka (University of New England, Department of Physics)

Gertrud Kraut (Southern Virginia University, Department of Mathematics)

 

We are collecting here resources for instructors teaching physics to Life Science majors. This project is supported by NSF CCLI DUE-0737458. The resources are organized in two ways: by biological application (first table) and by physics topic (second table).

This page is very much a work in progress. We expect to be adding items on and off until at least September 2010. Any feedback on the items (useability, accuracy) would be most welcome.

 

Other resources for the same student audience are

Humanized Physics Project

Sense-making tutorials from the University of Maryland Project.

 

Biological application & physics topics & supporting mathematics

Overview and Bibliography

Lectures

Questions (clicker, homework, exam)

Lab Activities

Predator/Prey

position, velocity , acceleration

PDF format

Word format

PowerPoint Slides

Word format

None

Falling cats

terminal velocity, drag force, velocity, acceleration

Word format

PowerPoint Slides

Word format

None

Capturing current

Fluid flow, continuity, viscocity, Bernoulli

Word format

coming

coming

Viscosity Lab

Materials

stress, strain, Hooke's law, strength of materials, fracture

Word format

coming

coming

Stretching Lab

Compression lab

 

Physics topic

Mathematics support

Biological application

Conservation of Momentum:  (Pushing on the Environment)

 Algebra and geometry

 

Walking people; hovering hummingbird; jetting jellyfish;  Word format; pdf

 Forces in fluids

 Algebra

 Falling cats, hydrodensitometry, centrifuge; Word format; pdf

 

 

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