BERG Homepage  

(NEXUS) National Experiment in Undergraduate Science Education 

Overview  

The goal of this project is to develop new science and math support courses for biology majors and pre-healthcare students that can serve as a national model. Two key features of the project are:

• It will focus on building scientific competencies as outlined in the Scientific Foundations for Future Physicians and the Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education reports;
• It is to have a high level of coordination among the scientific disciplines of biology, physics, chemistry, and mathematics.

The project is supported by a grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and involved collaboration of four universities.

• The University of Maryland, College Park (Physics)
• The University of Maryland, Baltimore County (Mathematics)
• Purdue University (Chemistry)
• The University of Miami (Integrative Case Studies) 

A related grant from the National Science Foundation: The Thermodynamics Project will support the development/research of materials related to thermodynamics topics specifically.

An Introductory Physics Class for Life Science Students

The development of the physics class is being carried out at the University of Maryland, College Park, by a team of physicists and biologists,in consultation with mathematicians and chemists.

Introductory physics courses are traditionally taught as if they were a student's first college science course.  This course will take a different perspective. Since it is envisioned as a course specifically for biology students, we have positioned it to take place in the second year of a bio majors' schedule with the following pre-requisites:

• One year of biology including an introduction to cellular biology, biochemistry, and genetics.
• One semester of chemistry.
• One year of calculus (preferable for biologists) and basic concepts of probability.

We are designing the class so that high school physics is not required, though it might be helpful for students to have had it. As we present the class we will explore the extent to which students with and without high school physics respond.

At present, few if any upper division biology classes have physics as a pre-requisite.  We hope to create a course that the teachers of upper division classes in cellular biology, organismal biology, neuroscience, and physiology will all look at our class and say, "I want my students to have had that physics class before they take my class."

For more information on the project, see the links below:

First Semester Materials

• Physics 131: Fundamentals of Physics for Biologists I 
• Class schedule - syllabus 
• Readings for Physics 131 - course readings (wiki)
• Problems for Physics 131 - table of hw and exam problems
• The Problem Collection (under development -- a more complete set) 
• Clicker questions for Physics 131 - in-class clicker questions
• Recitation activities I
• Laboratories 1-5
• Recent implementations at the University of Maryland
• Fall 2015
• Fall 2016 
• Fall 2017 

Second Semester Materials

• Physics 132: Fundamentals of Physics for Biologists II 
• Class schedule - syllabus 

• Reading for Physics 132 (wiki)
• Problems for Physics 132
• The Problem Collection (under development -- a more complete set)  
• Clicker questions for Physics 132
• Recitation activities II
• Laboratories 6-11
• Recent implementations at the University of Maryland 
• Spring 2016
• Spring 2017
• Spring 2018 

Threads

• Overview of Threads
• Energy and chemical bonds
• Random motion, diffusion, and entropy
• Mathematical reasoning
• Multi-representational translation and coherence

Workshop Materials

• Materials for Laboratory Workshop (AAPT Summer 2013)
• Materials for Lab and Math Modeling Workshop (BioQuest HHMI Summer 2014) 

Papers and Presentations

The Team   

• Personnel by Institution: PurU / UMCP / UMBC / UMiami 
• Personnel by Discipline: Biology / Chemistry / Physics / Mathematics
• External Advisory Board 
• Executive Steering Committee
• Global Assessment Committee
• External cooperators 

Internal pages (request access)

• Instructors' HomePage

• Guides for TAs and LAs

• Working Development Page

• Content, Course Objectives, and Learning Goals

• Weekly class delivery plan