- Year 2018
- NSF Award #1540699
- Registration Current Noyce Scholar
- First Name Lucas
- Last Name Kilmer
- Discipline Physics
- Institution Lewis University
Abstract
In Illinois alone there are 65 high schools that are designated either as underprivileged or high needs. These schools lack the funding required to effectively support their student bodies, which can be detrimental to their high school education. Departments that are the most at risk are those belonging to any fields of the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). As an educator, operating laboratory activities in these fields at the lowest potential cost is a necessity for ensuring quality experimentation over the course of an entire academic year. Demonstrations and laboratory activities for physics-related courses are particularly difficult to supplement with inexpensive materials due to the high level of precision and instrumentation required to observe many physical phenomena. For the usage in physics classrooms, the construction and implementation of cost effective versions of several laboratory experiments will be produced and documented for usage in the high needs classroom setting. Three different physics laboratory experiments, each for different subject matter, will be investigated for the duplication at the high school level and will contain comprehensive material in compliance with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). These experiments will then be scaled for increased difficulty, conceptually and mathematically, to be utilized in an undergraduate setting at the college level.
