A Fun General Education Physics Course: Physics of Sports

摘要

During a two-year visiting appointment at Oberlin College in Oberlin, OH, I offered a course called Physics of Sports for the fall 2000 semester and the fall 2001 semester. While preparing the course, I faced a challenge that confronts many physics teachers: How can I make a general education physics course fun for nonscience students? With only an algebra prerequisite for the course, the typical student did not have a particularly strong mathematical background. My goal was to not only teach those students a little physics, but also show them how physicists try to understand and describe the world of sports. I also wanted to make the course sufficiently enjoyable that the students had a positive experience in what may have been the last science course some of them ever took. After discussions with the students, I feel the course succeeded in fulfilling my goals.