Barbara S. Andereck
Professor of Physics and Astronomy
Ohio Wesleyan University
Professional Background
- B. S. in Ed. --Physics and Mathematics, Southwest Missouri State
University
- Ph. D. --Physics, Condensed Matter Theory, Rutgers, The State University
of New Jersey
Research Interests
Phase transitions in liquid crystal systems,
especially the nematic to smectic A transition
Recent Publications
- "The Magic Magnifier," Barbara S. Andereck and Sherri Secrest, The
Physics Teacher, 39, 301, 2001.
- "Measurement of Air Resistance on an Air Track," Barbara S. Andereck,
American Journal of Physics, 67, 528, 1999.
- "Anisotropy of the Nematic-Smectic-A Phase Transition," Barbara S.
Andereck, Liquid Crystals in the Nineties and Beyond, Satyen Kumar, ed.
World Scientific, 1996.
- "Anisotropic Renormalization of Thermodynamic Quantities above the
Nematic-Smectic-A Phase Transition," Barbara S. Andereck and Bruce Patton,
Phys. Rev. E, 49, 139 (1994).
- "Extended Isotropic-to-Anisotropic Crossover above the Nematic-Smectic-A
Phase Transition," Bruce R. Patton and Barbara S. Andereck, Phys. Rev.
Lett.69, 1556 (1992).
Teaching Interests
I teach a full range of physics and astronomy
courses. Among the more non-traditional courses that I have taught are
Cosmology, Elementary Physics (for pre-service teachers), and Time. "Time" is a freshman
honors tutorial where we explore the measurement of time, time as a fourth
dimension, the arrow of time, possibilities of time travel, and psychological
and sociological implications of time.
Education Workshops
In past summers I have conducted or
participated in teacher workshops related to teaching physics in high school or
earlier. Summer 1997 I was one of the presenters for the
Project Primary workshop
for K-3 teachers. If you would like to see some of the ideas that I presented
related to
Shadows , check out some of the worksheets I developed.
Summer 1999
the workshop for grades 4 and 5 was
MIST . For this
workshop I wrote activities related to collisions, a magnifier, a pendulum
clock, and superball races. Feel free to check out these
activities.
Summer 2000 the elementary teachers developed their own
activities
as part of the workshop.
Summer 2001 the workshop focused on activities that would help high school
teachers develop skills needed for meeting the Ohio Graduation Requirements.
The physics
activities can be found on the
Education Workshop web
site.
Contact me if you have any questions or
comments.