Biophysics in the 21st Century Curriculum II
1/7/2022 | 4:15 PM to 5:15 PM
Moderator: Robert Hilborn / Co-Organizer:
Session Code: A 3.1 | Submitting Committee: Committee on Contemporary Physics / Co-Sponsoring Committee: Committee on Physics in Undergraduate Education
A3.1-01 - 4:15 PM | Invited | Transitioning Students from Learning Biophysics to Doing Biophysics
Presenting Author: Brian Cannon, Loyola University Chicago
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The Loyola University Chicago Department of Physics offers a B.S. in Biophysics program that consists of a balanced blend of biology, chemistry, and physics coursework. As a capstone experience, students must complete an upper-level biophysics course. Although the course has a a significant lecture component with a focus on molecular and cellular biophysics as well as biomechanics, the aim of the course is for students to engage in professional science activities. Classroom activities include interpreting results from journal articles, writing an NIH-style research proposal on an instructor-approved topic with peer reviews, and completing an experimental project. I will present an overview of the course, its activities, and challenges. Students are also encouraged to participate in faculty research, and my undergraduate-only lab has several student researchers conducting experiments in single-molecule DNA microscopy. I will also discuss how the lab recruits students, trains them for research, and mentors their progress.
A3.1-02 - 4:45 PM | Contributed | Physics for the Modern World
Presenting Author: Donald Franklin, Retired/ consult for Openstax.college
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Using Openstax.college avaiable ebooks, I built an ebook that incorporates the topics the Pre Med students need, not the syllabus used by most major textbooks. My major position is " Don't Teach What You Know, Teach Them What They Need to Know "
That way the students see how Physics prepares them for their career, instead of being a course that is designed to " cull the herd! " All chapters relate to Medical Topics.
Too many textbooks spent too much time, exposing students to non- Medical Physics, so the students just memorize the material. They feel that Physics is an Educational Hurdle to Master, which has limited value for a Pre-Med Candidate.
A3.1-03 - 4:55 PM | Contributed | Biophysics in the Undergraduate Curriculum
Presenting Author: Peter Nelson, Fisk University
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A new active-learning pedagogy is presented that includes computation as a central theme. The approach starts with the "marble game", a kinetic Monte Carlo simulation of diffusion. Students first learn how to play the game by hand and then implement it in Excel to discover that Fick's law of diffusion can be explained by random jumping between two boxes. In a guided-inquiry environment, students apply the same techniques to drug elimination, radioactive decay, osmosis, ligand binding, enzyme kinetics, and ion channel permeation. Students discover for themselves the consequences and significance of model assumptions by reading and interpreting graphs, and by comparing model predictions with real data using linear regression and non-linear least-squares fits. The pedagogical objective is for students to discover for themselves that science is an evidence-based endeavor with testable hypotheses that are supported by experiment.