Laboratory Course in Physics for Students of Environmental Sciences

Abstract

Learning with the basic principles of scientific experimentation. By performing experiments in different fields of experimental physics the students will learn the usage of measurement instruments as well as the correct analysis and the estimation of the accuracy of the measurement results.

Objective

Working in a laboratory forms an important part of modern scientific education. Using simple experimental setup the laboratory course will provide basic knowledge of: - the setup of experiments, - various measurement techniques, - the use of various measurement instruments, - the correct performance of experiments, - the analysis of the accuracy of the measurements, - and the interpretations of the measured quantities. The course will also deepen the knowledge of experimental physics. In addition to experiments selected from the physics lab for physicists, this lab course offers experiments specially developed for bachelor students in environmental sciences, which illustrate the mutual relationships between physical processes and chemical and biological phenomena.

Content

The students select 3 out of 18 offered experiments that they want to conduct. After conducting these experiments, the students document and analyze their measurements, estimate the accuracy of their results, and compare them with the values expected according to the laws of physics. Introductory lectures with exercises in Jupyter Notebooks as evaluation tools and in determining the accuracy of measurement results ("error calculation"), as well as a preliminary experiment for practicing experiment evaluation, complement the practical.

Resources