COVID-19 Questions for Physics Exams

• Autores: Colin S. Wallace, Alice D. Churukian, Daniel Young, Duane Deardorff
• Localización: The Physics Teacher, ISSN 0031-921X, Vol. 62, Nº. 2, 2024, págs. 116-118
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Physics instructors are always looking for questions and activities that both are tractable to students and illuminate real-life applications of physics. This is especially true in Introductory Physics for the Life Sciences (IPLS), where many students enter with the belief that physics is merely a “weed-out” course that has little to do with their majors and career goals.1 Authentic applications of physics to the life sciences help dispel this myth.

    The COVID-19 pandemic provides numerous examples of the relevance of physics to current events and the life sciences. Physics principles are used both to model the spread of the disease and to develop technologies that curb its transmission. Given the disruption COVID-19 has wrought on almost every aspect of life, physics content related to the pandemic inevitably captures students’ attention. Few topics are more relevant to their lives, at the time of writing, than COVID-19.