Intro Physics for Life Sciences

I came across this article out of Michigan State University, about the issue of teaching intro physics to life science majors. I find it rather interesting (amusing?) that this is still an issue being discussed at many large universities when smaller universities and community colleges have long focused on designing such courses for these life sciences/pre-med majors.

Without naming names, I know of 3 major universities in the Chicago area that do NOT have special intro physics courses for such majors. They lump them with the same group of students majoring in physics, chemistry and engineering. So not only are they required to know calculus in those calculus-based intro physics courses, but also they are competing with students whose major are more closely aligned with physics. It is why many of these life-science majors often opted to pay for these courses at city colleges and community colleges and get their transfer credits.

I had written something on this two years ago about teaching physics to life-science/pre-med majors. I am more convinced than ever, just as stated in the article, that you cannot teach this as you normally would to physical science/engineering students. It helps that the course was designed for life-science majors (we used text that are full of examples out of biology, medicine, etc.), but the course objectives and learning outcomes are generic and not specific to these majors. At the curriculum level, there is still a disconnect between the students' need and the official objectives of the course. As an instructor, I am bound by the course objectives and learning outcomes, but of course, I have leeway in implementing those. That means that I try to emphasize more on the topics that are more relevant to their needs and more applicable to life sciences than others. As the article pointed out, while planetary motion and central force problems are part of physics (and part of the course objectives), I do not emphasize it as much as I would in a calc-based physics class.

There can be more refinement and improvement in the design of courses for these students, making them even more relevant to their area of studies. This can only lead to a win-win situation, where the students will actually see the value and connection between physics and biology/medicine, and we can motivate the students more easily on the importance of physics in their fields. I see nothing wrong with that at all.

Zz.