Your Research Projects:  guidelines, timelines, candidates

Physical Systems 1998-99
with E.J. Zita

• Your project pages
• due dates and formats
• candidate projects
• Resources
• Weekly tasks:  Wk1 Wk2 Wk3 Wk4 Wk5 Wk6 Wk7-8 Wk9-10
• File your weekly reports here
• Interim reports on week 6
• Examples of research reports from past programs

With your research partner, everyone should:

• in Fall
1. do an in-depth library research project and supporting calculations
2. learn to use the experimental equipment of your choice, and write a brief tutorial for the class to use in winter
• in Winter
1. do an experiment (physical and/or numerical) on your research topic
2. teach the class how to use the equipment you learned in fall
3. rewrite your equipment tutorial to include a clear description of the physics mechanisms involved
4. present your work at a college physics meeting which we will all attend
• in Spring
1. research a new topic in cosmology
2. if you like, also continue advanced work on your earlier research topic, assuming your fall/winter work was completed well.
• each quarter: produce your report as a Web page and give two talks on it (one for practice)
• Produce an annotated bibliography and properly reference all sources.
• Your online research report should focus on the science and also carefully consider the contexts and meanings of the work.

3:00 pm, Monday 12 October: TOPIC, with a brief discussion of your goals and a list of team members plus their email addresses.
Send it by email to *Zita and to *David Metzler. He will set up a place for you to file weekly progress reports online, and a team web project page.
3:00 pm, Friday 30 October: annotatedBIBLIOGRAPHY of journal articles and books (your primary sources), with an APPENDIX listing and linking any web pages you may use (WEB PAGES MAY NOT SERVE AS PRIMARY SOURCES for your research project!)
Post these to your web *project page for permanent reference, and give a *printout to Zita (in the box outside Lab I, Rm 1020, by 3:00)
3:00 pm, Friday 20 November: Your RESEARCHREPORT IS DUE. Complete references are mandatory. Write this as a Word file or as a Web page, whichever you prefer.
Give a *printout to Zita (in the box outside Lab I, Rm 1020, by 3:00).
3:00 pm, Friday 11 December: YourREWRITTEN report is due, polished and

published to your project *Web page. Also give a *printout to Zita (in the box outside Lab I, Rm 1020, by 3:00).

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3:00 pm, Friday 9 October: Pick a Piece of equipment. Find out where it is and who can teach you to use it safely. List team members plus their email addresses.

Send this by *email to Zita
3:00 pm, Friday 6 November: Both team members should get trained and "certified" to use the equipment you chose, before today.
Give a copy of your *certification to Zita (put it in the box outside Lab I, Rm 1020, by 3:00)
3:00 pm, Friday 13 November: Your EQUIPMENT TUTORIAL IS DUE. Write a brief (under 5 pages, double-spaced), clear, and concrete tutorial that will help classmates use the equipment next quarter. Credit the manuals and the support technicians appropriately, and include any crucial, clear diagrams you need.
Post this to your *Web page and give a *printout to Zita, with a *copy of any manuals you used (in the box outside Lab I, Rm 1020, by 3:00)

Choose from one of these, or propose your own.

• Evergreen's High-tech equipment Treasure-hunt
• Modern Physics topics, by Charles Cunningham
• Nobel Prize-generating research

Read these at the beginning and middle of your work, and again as you are polishing your finished product.

• Rubrics for college writing
• Quality Control , Searching and Copyright considerations on the Web
• Lee Lyttle's guide to quick and easy Web pages
• Midquarter "interim report", tutorials, presentations

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Weekly Tasks: WATCH FOR CHANGES IN THIS SCHEDULE - this draft (July 98) is based on last Spring's Astronomy schedule
• week 1: Brainstorm project ideas in class; find potential members of your research team during afternoon group work sessions. Attend the Introduction to Web Authoring workshop and get your own Web page.
• week 2: Write up a one-page draft describing your proposed research project and team. Tell us your title, etc. by email, and we will set up a Web link for you in the project folder:
Aprojfolder/
• Every week: Re-read another article, discuss it with your partner and, together, fill out a project report on Friday.
• week 3: Post your team's draft research proposal on your team Web page, during our Advanced Web Authoring Workshop. Work with your partner to continually update your site, so that you can share information efficiently with the whole class.
• week 4 and throughout the quarter:  Both team members will research agreed-upon details of your topic, discuss progress and challenges with each other, communicate in person, share information on your Web page, and help each other to keep focused and engaged.
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• week 5: Prepare a three-page interim report on your research project with your team. Post (or link) it on your team Web page, and bring a hardcopy of your report and your best article to your team conference with Zita next week. Make relevant links to Web sites you are finding useful.

 

Include a description of your project, your progress, both partners' tasks, a bibliography (with a sentence about the level and reliability of each source), and a list of goals you'd like to complete by the end of this quarter. Also please print out a copy of the first page of your web page, with your URL in the header.  Write references in the same format as in  Stellar Interiors.

Bring a hardcopy of the best article on your topic that you've found (from a journal such as Science, Scientific American, Nature,  etc.- NOT A WEB SITE) If your favorite source is a book or a softer article, bring that in addition to your best article. If your favorite sources are web sites, make links to them on your web page so I can browse them at your conference, but do not rely on these as your primary sources - bring the hardcopy article too.
 
 
 

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• week 6: Both partners meet with your professor to discuss progress so far, and use the rest of the week to really concentrate on your research. Bring all the stuff you prepared in week 5 (above).
• weeks 7-8: Continue to research and discuss your project, and update your Web site. You should experience an epiphany about now, as pieces you've learned throughout the quarter come together to form a coherent whole. Celebrate the synthesis, and make good use of your intellectual momentum, so we can share in some of the excitement of your new learning.

 

weeks 9-10: Finish writing your report/tutorial and your bibliography on the Web. Present your team's research on your web page to the program. Submit three candidate exam questions with proposed solutions.

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