9350641 Skadron Accelerating innovations in computer technology have changed the nature of the discovery process in physics and have created opportunities to rethink the undergraduate physics curriculum. The present project is a product of such an effort. The goal is to create a modern computational facility for the entire undergraduate physics program. Majors moving through the physics sequence are learning computational techniques alongside the physics and are using these techniques to enhance their understanding of the physics. Students are gaining several distinct benefits from the modernized curriculum: a). the computational component of the curriculum broadens each course by enabling students to examine realistic effects usually neglected when only analytical methods are used; b). newly gained computational skills enable undergraduates to make meaningful contributions to the Department's undergraduate research participation programs; and c). students carry powerful problem-solving tools to graduate school or the work force. ***
