When students perform experiments in introductory labs, they usually use SI units for measurements, especially when measuring a well-known quantity (such as the acceleration of an object in free fall, g). In such cases, they find ways to confirm their results without a proper error analysis because their result is "close enough" to the correct answer. Masking the correct answer by using a non-standard system of units can encourage students to be more careful when ascertaining if their results are valid. Such a technique is common in nuclear and particle physics research, and in this poster we discuss a way to define a new unit of length so that g has a value not known to the students. To make this a more scientifically engaging experience, the lab takes place over two lab periods, where during the second period we run a "conference" where the students are guided in coming up with a consensus among the group as to what the accepted value of g is in these units.

To better align assessment and learning goals for practical work, without increasing the teacher’s workload, we developed the scientific graphic organizer (SGO). The SGO can be considered a pre-structured but simplified lab journal that in many cases allows to replace the practical’s worksheet as well as students’ written report. I will elaborate on the educational value of the SGO, discuss its elements, and report on the practical implementation and preliminary results of research into, and with the SGO.

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is an important tool used in the modern STEM workforce. The recent development of inexpensive benchtop NMR spectrometers offers great opportunities for undergraduate institutions to give their students relevant research skills with this essential technique. Through the support of an NSF-IUSE grant, we have established an interdisciplinary and cross-institutional team to develop, assess, and disseminate curricular material that integrates NMR into the undergraduate science curriculum. We have been developing and testing curricular materials consisting of lab modules and associated instructional guides and online resources. As we focus on dissemination in the coming year, we would like to assess the implementation of these materials and their effectiveness in different institutional environments, with or without direct access to an NMR system. If you or any faculty colleagues may be interested in implementing any of our materials, please scan the QR code on the poster for the contact form.

Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are useful for creating an introductory lab experience that illustrates important features of the photoelectric effect as well as the properties of photodiodes. We have developed a simplifed implementation of this lab experience by exploiting the higher powers of low-cost LEDs. For our experience, six fixed pairs of aligned LEDs are used with differing colors: red-red, red-green, red-blue, green-green, green-blue, blue-blue. A variable low-voltage power supply and a minimal cost digital multimeter are needed in addition. The experiments confirm that only the blue diode will create photocurrents in all three LEDs used as absorbers. Green photodiodes create photocurrents in only the green and red LEDs, and a red photodiode creates a photocurrent only in a red LED. All of these are elementary aspects of the photoelectric effect. The experience also gives hands-on experience with the fact that an LED is both a source and a detector of light, as well as insight into the relationship of voltage and color.

With exciting news continually reported from the LHC, including the recent conclusive experiment regarding the mass of the W boson, accelerator physics is of key interest to undergraduate students. We present a low-cost, versatile intermediate-to-advanced laboratory experiment that draws students in with the promise to learn more about accelerator magnetic fields. Students are kept engaged through adaptations that can focus exploration on CAD design and 3D printing, theoretical derivations, simulations to visualize and calculate the magnetic field, or experimental data-taking and analysis. Students investigate the behavior of magnetic fields exterior to the common quadrupole, octupole, and sextupole magnet configurations used in particle accelerators to guide and focus the beam path. In the far-field limit, the lowest order multipole term should dominate the magnetic field behavior, such that the magnetic field is proportional to 1/r^(l+2), where l is the multipole order. We find excellent agreement between theoretical, simulated, and experimental results that verify this expected behavior. Our apparatus is simple, and we encourage the use of Python to simulate the magnetic fields and Phyphox, a freely available smartphone app, to collect data. This ensures accessibility by keeping costs low and allowing for the laboratory to be completed remotely or in person.