Physics (13) This project is upgrading and modernizing the laboratory for the second year introductory course in modern physics. There are several motivations. First, a recent external Department Review committee singled out this laboratory in its recommendations. Second, a systematic series of visits to see what worked best at eleven nearby colleges revealed many new ideas to adapt and implement. Third, a new faculty member with expertise in electro-optics provides the means to make this laboratory, early in the physics major, an exciting introduction to experimentation, incorporating current research. Finally, new models of pedagogy suggest this laboratory could be more inquiry-based and investigative. The project is equipping the new laboratory with optical tables, optical mounts and components, semiconductor lasers, a 1.0 meter spectrometer, and a CCD camera. The project is aiming at flexibility and reconfigurability of the laboratory, on the model of existing electronics and nuclear physics laboratories, so that experiments, once understood, can be easily modified to address new questions. The basic experiments of the laboratory are being reworked twice within the 24-month period of the grant, once during the school year and once in the summer, and they are being designed so that variations of them are easy to implement. Students are being encouraged to make such variations and publish the results of their investigations in webpage form, linked by the professor/referee/editor to the course homepage. It is expected this new lab to have a beneficial influence on students' later coursework in the major, especially the independent thesis projects of the senior year. It should also motivate students in the first year course to consider a major in physics.
