Physics (13) Intellectual Merit: Computational science and engineering (CSE) is a multidisciplinary combination of techniques, tools and knowledge to solve scientific and engineering problems through computer simulations. Computational physics (CP) is a subdiscipline of CSE. Modern physics also requires the understanding of computation. A CP curriculum, being a combination of physics, computer science (CS), and applied math, provides a broader viewpoint than normally found in physics, yet by containing a toolset common to other computational sciences, it opens up multiple intellectual paths. This project opens up the computational black box by providing CP curricula materials based on a problem-solving paradigm. These materials support a balanced, effective, and efficient approach to undergraduate education that prepares students better for their careers.
Over the last decade, NSF support has led to the development of five courses, four textbooks, and a new degree program in CP at Oregon State University. This project is augmenting these materials with video-based discussions, to convert and combine all materials into electronic forms that permit multi-modal and multilayered access to them, and to conduct outreach activities to encourage and educate faculty in their use. The new forms for the curricular materials can be blended into courses that have variable degrees of face-to-face and face-to-computer elements. The ability to vary the blend to fit the local educational environment is a documented avenue for improving the effectiveness of a course. The complete digital package of CP materials being created is a model for a future generation textbook that promises to be more accessible, to improve learning, be less costly-yet still be commercially viable, and that advances the CP collection of the National Science Digital Library/comPADRE.
Broader Impact: The goal is to stimulate a systemic change in undergraduate education that reflects computation having become an essential element in all the sciences. Although the desired systemic change has begun slowly with a small number of early adopters, the project is supporting and accelerating the process by providing flexible and complete educational materials that can be used in various computational science classes, and by continuing outreach activities in the physics, education, and computational communities. Even though students may take fewer science classes in a computational science curriculum, they tend to learn the science, CS, and math better when placed in context, and thus get more out of the classes. The reduction in the number of science classes is thereby compensated for by the increased efficiency of the approach. Furthermore, learning various subjects in context, for the purpose of solving problems important to society, is more effective for and appealing to students who are more diverse than those presently in CS or physics.
