Carl E. Wieman from the University of British Columbia who shared the 2001 Nobel Prize in physics for the creation of a new state of matter will give a free public lecture on the future of science education.
The annual Guy and Rebecca Forman Lecture, “Science Education in the 21st Century: Using the tools of physics to teach physics,” is scheduled for Monday, April 7, at 3 p.m. in Stevenson Center room 4327.
In the talk, Wieman will describe research that is setting the stage for moving physics education from its current “medieval” state to a new approach that can provide all students with the effective physics education required for the demands of the 21st century. He will discuss the failures of traditional educational practices, even as used by very good teachers, and compare them with the successes possible with the new practices and technology that are being developed.
Wieman received his Nobel Prize for the discovery of the Bose-Einstein condensate, a new state of matter that exists at ultra-low temperatures. He and his collaborators created the condensate, a dilute gas of alkali atoms that acts like a “super atom,” by using lasers to super-cool the atoms with a technique called an optical trap.
Guy Forman had a long and distinguished career in teaching physics: He taught for 14 years at Western Kentucky University and 19 years at Vanderbilt, before leaving in 1962 to spend 10 years building the physics department at the newly created University of South Florida in Tampa. Rebecca Forman taught in public schools for 28 years.
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