Lab 1
Introduction to Visual E&M

Visual E&M is a one semester laboratory introduction to Electricity and Magnetism. The first half of the course focuses on electrostatics. It culminates with an investigation of the electric field as visualized by the trajectory of an electron beam. The second half of the course focuses on magnetostatics and culminates with two measurements of the charge-to-mass ratio of the electron. An anonymous evaluation of the course and the instructor by each student occurs on the last day of class.

Communication, team work, and critical thinking are enhanced by the structured environment of cooperative learning groups. The groups are patterned after teams that might exist at a small research company. Each team consists of four students whose role in the team is defined by an ID badge. Badges reinforce team identity and encourage role playing.

Students select their role as Manager, Theorist, Publicist, or Skeptic. The roles may be changed every two or three weeks by the instructor. In this way each student can have the opportunity to play each role in the same or in different teams. Ample time for team and class discussion is provided.

A typical class has a mean enrollment of twenty students or five teams. Each team is assigned to a round table. See Figure 1.

Figure 1. A Visual E&M Team

Course Outline

We call Visual E&M a “Focussed Concept Laboratory” because it provide a learning experience that merges a physical concept having current research interest with a focus that makes the concept interesting and tractable. See Figure 2.

Figure 2. Course Outline

Syllabus

Lab 1.Introduction.

Lab 2.Static Electricity.

Lab 3Conduction.

Lab 4.Resistance.

Lab 5.DC Circuits.

Lab 6.Equipotentials.

Lab 7.Measure E-field.

Lab 8.Magnetometers.

Lab 9.Measure B-field.

Lab 10.Helmholtz Coils.

Lab 11.Measure e/m.

Lab 12.E x B.

Lab 13.Course Evaluation.

The order of the exercises can be modified or they can be used individually.

Computer Software

Visual E&M is a paperless laboratory. Each exercise appears as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file on the screen of a team computer. The PDF file is displayed in full screen view. Links (indicated by blue symbols or text) provide navigation. Icons that appear in the laboratory exercises are linked to software for data entry, calculation, display, and storage. Clicking an icon opens an executable software application in LabVIEW™, an icon-driven data-flow programming language created by the National Instruments Corporation. LabVIEW™ version 7.1 or later must be installed.

Acknowledgement