Sustainability is now a crucial global priority due to ongoing problems such as climate change, limited resources, and vulnerable ecosystems. To engage students in the science of sustainability and its challenges, we have designed and implemented a capstone course, Physics of Sustainability, focusing on the major themes of sustainability, climate change, and sustainable energy. Our course is taught within the physics department and is required for all physics and civil engineering majors. This talk will provide an overview of goals for the course and show how class sessions are structured. In addition, we will discuss classroom assignments and projects. 

The Arduino microcontroller is finding its way into labs throughout the undergraduate physics curriculum.  At Davidson College, we use Arduinos in a gateway course for students who are interested in energy and the environment.  Students learn to build simple circuits and write the accompanying Arduino code to control the temperature in solar-powered model buildings.  To make the models fully solar-powered, we replace the battery that is usually used to power an Arduino by a small commercially available solar panel connected in parallel with a capacitor.  Using the CLASS for assessment, we observe an overall favorable shift in student attitudes about science in this class.  We have seen a significant decrease in unfavorable responses relating to conceptual understanding and a significant increase in favorable responses related to personal interest.

This presentation is an introduction to the Climate Science workbook developed by Dr. Jerry Bell at the Wisconsin Initiative for Science Literacy (WISL). The workbook is freely available online and includes 14 Activity sections so-titled to reinforce the idea that each would incorporate one or more hands-on activities to be carried out and analyzed by students. Examples from the workbook will be introduced and information about accessing the activities will be provided.