Example courses—List yours here

Reviews, ideas, or complete lesson plans. Please include the subject and perhaps the appropriate grade level in your subject line.
Post Reply
shawn
Site Admin
Posts: 344
Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2005 9:41 am
Location: Cambridge, Mass.

Example courses—List yours here

Post by shawn »

If you have taught a course about energy, leave us a description/syllabus here. Bonus points for recommendations on textbooks, equipment, etc.
shawn
Site Admin
Posts: 344
Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2005 9:41 am
Location: Cambridge, Mass.

McGrew's energy course for Genesee Community College

Post by shawn »

Ralph McGrew from Broome Community College in Binghamton, NY, sent me this email:
Between 1970 and 1981 I taught a course on energy at Genesee Community College, Batavia, NY. I constructed the course and wrote the textbook and lab manual. It was an extraordinarily low-level course, requiring only arithmetic and the simplest algebra. We assumed that the students, from a variety of non-science, non-technical curricula, would take no further science courses in college. The course developed ideas of work, kinetic and gravitational energy, conservation, heat, internal energy, the first and second laws of thermodynamics, chemical and electrical energy, sound, light, atomic structure and energy quantization, and nuclear energy.
I have done so much since then in courses that demand much more from students, that I might disown some chunks of the course now. On the other hand, it had time to introduce ideas about the great growth in human energy use through history, the development of the idea of energy, and the identification of the energy transformations accomplished by important and common devices and processes.
Post Reply