Thirty undergraduate physics faculty from the southwestern section of the country are receiving intensive training in the application of microcomputers to undergraduate physics laboratories. The workshop is being conducted by experts from the university, which has an extensive program to modernize their laboratories by equipping them with microcomputers to simplify the collection of data and permit more advanced phenomena to be investigated. The participants are being selected from two and four-year colleges from the region with preference given to those from institutions servicing significant numbers of Hispanic and native American students. During the week the participants are listening to experts discuss and demonstrate equipment and experiments which have improved the quality of physics laboratories. In the afternoons, the participants are using the equipment discussed under the direction of the same experts. The workshop is introducing the undergraduate faculty to the concept of microcomputer based laboratories and to the data processing concepts that make this innovation possible. They are becoming familiar with the operation of the equipment and it is expected that they and their students are becoming better prepared to apply microcomputers to the study of physics.
