Students should experience physics as an exciting experimental science with applications extending beyond the laboratory or classroom setting. Students often believe that physics is too complicated, and they fail to recognize relevant applications. The interdisciplinary approach being developed by the Physics and Exercise and Sport Science Departments allows the student's perspective of physics to expand beyond a symmetrical frictionless model, to a model that has connections to the real world. Introductory physics, kinesiology, biomechanics, and upper-level research courses in both departments now have opportunities to experimentally examine and analyze complicated human motion through the use of digitized video applications. More than 40 percent of the students are affected by the interdisciplinary approach that is currently being developed. The project provides a PC-based motion analysis system that enables students to more efficiently and effectively understand and apply physics principles and theories. Current protocols, including manual tracing, are long, tedious and often difficult processes. The old system has not allowed for the analysis of more complex movements and integration of related force data. The new system allows students to make efficient use of laboratory experiences with the focus on learning rather than preparing to learn. *
