PHYS 102 Modern Physics with CURE/PBL
Pei-Chun Ho, California State University-Fresno
A component of course-based research experience (CURE)/ Project-Based Learning is implemented in this course. Students (two per group) will have to choose and design a project based on Modern Physics to perform research-style activities. Students will work on a project over a semester to engage in solving a real-world problem or answering a complex question. As a result, students can develop deep content knowledge as well as critical thinking, creativity, and communication skills in the context of doing an authentic, meaningful project. Examples of proposed projects can be thermal radiation related, such as solar cell, dye-sensitized-solar cell, heat-load analysis, and thermal-imaging analysis. In the end of semester, each group need to make a poster to showcase the results. The outcome of CURE is to prepare students for academic, personal, and career success and readies them for the challenge of our environment on Earth and global competition.

Topography with Muons
Richard Lombardini, St. Marys University
Accuracy for 3D positioning is affected by surrounding media when using traditional techniques such as GPS. Other devices may need to be developed that produce readings unaltered by the conditions of the local environment (Tanaka 2020). The trajectory of highly energetic atmospheric muons experience very little change when traveling through different media, and the flux of particles is uniform and ubiquitous along surface of Earth. Using the TeachSpin muon detectors and theories of special relativity and quantum mechanics learned in class, students will determine the level of accuracy that they can achieve in the measurement of elevation at any location by directly measuring muon stopping rates.