Teaching Physics With Student-Made Art

Book excerpt: Despite efforts to attract a broader student population into physics, introductory physics courses remain a deterrent for many students. The motivation for this book is to make introductory physics more accessible and to increase interest in the subject by incorporating art-based teaching at the undergraduate level. By providing an alternate mental pathway to access physics, students can improve their understanding and deepen their personal connection with this often-impersonal subject. Additionally, by taking a visual approach to the study of physics, we can achieve a more inclusive way of teaching. This book focuses on the camera obscura, a darkened room with a small hole at one side through which an image is projected onto a wall opposite the hole. Originally developed as a scientific instrument, the camera obscura appeals to artists who use it as an aid to draw. This book is the third in a series of introductory physics topics. It is a collection of group projects in which students were tasked with designing and building a camera obscura to capture a scene and document the process. The project includes student photographs of the scene, setup, and image. Students were life science majors enrolled in the introductory physics sequence at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The project employed inquiry-based learning, an approach to learning that encourages students to engage in problem solving and experiential learning. The basis of this method is to help students in “how to think” instead of “what to think.” Rather than presenting a set of recipe-like instructions to build a camera obscura, students were asked to choose from one of three hypotheses or to make one of their own, and to briefly design an experiment to test this hypothesis that accounts for the elements of experimental design. Students were transformed from passive consumers of facts and content into active contributors to the learning experience.