Class content

An introduction to Physics 131:
Physics for Biology and Pre-Health-Care Majors

This class is a first attempt to try to redesign our introductory physics class so that it is directly relevant for biology majors and pre-meds.  It is a work in progress so we will be looking for lots of feedback as to what makes it effective and interesting for you!

Physics is important for biology since what we do in physics is try to understand the rules that govern how everything works.  Since biological organisms are part of “everything”, they are constrained by the rules of physics.  When you get to more advanced bio classes where you try to make sense of the mechanism of how things work, you’ll find the physics you've learned will be crucial.  When you get to a professional level, either in biology research or in health care, you’ll find that the thinking tools you learn here will be valuable in your research or developing your diagnoses. In addition, many of the instruments that you will be using to collect data will rely heavily on physics.  For you to be able to understand what you can reliably conclude from those instruments – and what their limitations are – you’ll need to understand some physics.

Traditional physics courses taken by biologists are typically not designed particularly for biologists and not given only to biologists.  Often they are “cut down” from courses designed for mechanical and electrical engineers.  This means that the set of physics topics chosen are not necessarily the ones that are most relevant for biologists, and it means that the biological examples discussed typically are limited and don't rely on any knowledge of biology. 

The topics for this class have been carefully chosen as a result of extensive negotiation between physicists and biologists.  We want this physics class to explicitly connect to what you are learning in all the scientific disciplines you have to study to learn to be a biologist or health-care professional -- biology, chemistry, and math.

• The pre-requisites: In order to be able to put physics in a biological context, this course is situated to be taken after you have learned some bio, chem, and math.  We expect you to have taken the following:
• Biology 105 and 106 – some introduction to cellular biology, genetics, and evolution.
• Chemistry 131 – an introduction to basic chemistry including atoms, molecules, bonding, etc.
• Math 130 and 131 – basic calculus (derivatives and integrals) and an introduction to probability
• The structure of the class: This class is set up to build on what has been learned over the past few decades about effective teaching methods.  The main result of this research can be summarized in two principles:
• What matters for your learning is not what the teacher does or what’s in the text but what you, the student, do with it.  What matters is what goes on in your head.  We will try to create activities and environments that will help you effectively use the information we provide.
• What matters for physics (and really for all of science) is not primarily learning facts or even procedures (though you will need to know both) but learning how to think with them and use them creatively. This means that both the activities and evaluations (quizzes, tests) in this class will not be simple recall, plug-and-chug, or find-the-keywords essays. Even on tests, we will be expecting you to think!  

Both the content and the structure of the class reflect these principles.  As a result, in this class we will

• Include lots of biological examples and applications, both at the micro and macro level.
• Include lots of active “doing” things as opposed to passive “listening and reading” things.

Read carefully our webpages on the class mechanics:

• The Structure of the Class and  
• Grading

so you don’t make wrong assumptions.  Your grade in this class is built up over the semester through lots of different activities – not just exams.  (Exams are worth less than half your overall grade.)  You don’t want to wake up halfway through and discover that you have already missed enough points that you can’t get an A!

In order to understand why we have chosen to set up the class the way we have, read our discussion of the nature of science in the sections below.

• The disciplines: Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and Math
• Science as making models
• Phenomenology and mechanism
• What Physics can do for Biologists

When you are done, go on to the section:

     Thinking about Thinking and Knowing

There, we discuss what has been learned about your brain by cognitive- and neuro- scientists over the past half century and its powerful implications for the best ways to learn. The approach we take in this class is structured to try to optimize this kind of learning.

Joe Redish 7/4/11