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contribute to student activities. Students in turn have estab- lished a mentoring award. The Committee on Education in Acoustics has organized workshops dealing with acoustics demonstrations and laboratory experiments. In high school workshops, readily available spectrum analysis software is introduced and a number of acoustics experiments are dis- cussed, along with ways of using them in the classroom con- text. Workshops for university teaching laboratories concen- trate on more sophisticated experiments, including the use of Lissajous figures to map normal modes by observing the phase change across a nodal line, or constructing a simple impedance head to observe resonances in open and closed tubes. While these efforts have been appreciated locally, much more needs to be done in order to observe measurable results in a national program of science education. The com- mittee has also organized a number of sessions at national meetings dealing with course development and acoustics programs, as well as specific courses in some of the acoustics sub-disciplines, such as medical acoustics, architectural acoustics, and musical acoustics.
3. The third topic is one of outreach. With evidently declining interest in the physical sciences, it becomes increasingly important to generate enthusiasm for such inter- ests in the very young. Interest in physics is rarely initiated in high school. At that level it can be nurtured, but unless excitement is sparked earlier, sciences are frequently per- ceived as too difficult by this time. To exacerbate the prob- lem, science content in teacher education programs at the elementary level frequently emphasize the life sciences, and the physical sciences are the poor country cousins. This sug- gests two solutions: teacher workshops, and class visits. Workshops have been supported mostly with ASA technical initiative funds, and also Eisenhower program money. ASA volunteers have visited classes at all levels, some in connec- tion with ASA meetings and some in the communities of res- idence of the scientists. Both approaches need to be expand- ed and institutionalized nationally. Efforts are currently ongoing to establish a permanent reservoir of demonstration equipment to support the hands-on demonstration sessions, conducted at most of the ASA national meetings, for classes of high school students and students in elementary schools.
Many of the workshops and class visits have focused on using music as a vehicle to introduce science in the class- room. Music is universally loved and thus provides a remark- able tool to bridge the chasm to “difficult science.” At the ele- mentary school level students do not know yet that science is supposed to be hard. Thus that is the ideal time to make the introduction. Most of the elementary workshops proceed along the line of discovering the nature of wave propagation on a long spring, followed by the concept of resonance as exemplified by standing waves on a stretched spring. The harmonic, integral multiple frequencies of higher resonances are observed and related to the harmonic overtone series on string instruments. Participating teachers build a Pythagorean Monochord, which they then take back with them to their classroom. The workshop finances also provide for the long spring, and for as set of tuning forks along with a tube tuned to the same frequency as one of the forks. The science concepts are taught, as are their relations to music
principles and ways of presenting both at the level of the chil- dren. (Editor’s note: see article in this issue of Acoustics Today by Busch-Vishniac and West.)
4. The fourth category is concerned with ASA efforts to increase literacy among the general population, both in general science, and in acoustics. Efforts are underway to improve the ASA web site, with the specific goal of making it more accessi- ble and more exciting. The site should convey general informa- tion about acoustics and entice the visitor to find out more. Workshops and short courses, while generally designed for pro- fessionals, have included outreach efforts to serve the general public. The annual award for a publication in acoustics by a non- professional has usually been given to a journalist, writing to a lay audience. The Salt Lake City meeting tutorial, Musical Acoustics: Science and Performance, will be open to the public with special invitations to students at all levels It will intermix introduction of science concepts, relevant to music, with lively jazz performances.
In summary, much has been done, yet much of the energy of the Society remains untapped. The recent assessment of the direction in which the ASA needs to move to maintain vitality, as well as provide additional leadership, both nationally and internationally, included a recommendation for more emphasis on education. With that in mind the immediate past president of ASA appointed an ad hoc committee on educational out- reach. Among other things, this committee is recommending that a permanent ASA education officer be employed, in order to accomplish some of the outreach tasks which are simply beyond the scope of a volunteer army. One of the tasks of such an officer would be to tap government and private foundation funds to coordinate efforts on a national scale which have proved so successful on a limited local scale.
With a Ph.D. in Low- Temperature Solid State Physics from Brigham Young University (66) Uwe J. Hansen spent two years at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory as a NAS/NRC Research Fellow before joining the Physics faculty at Indiana
State University (ISU). About 15 years later he saw the light, or better “heard the sound” and returned to his first love: Musical Acoustics. His research has focused on mode studies in musical instruments, primarily using holographic interfer- ometry and computer animated modal analysis. He is a fel- low of the Acoustical Society of America and the Indiana Academy of Science. He has served two terms as chair of the technical committee on Musical Acoustics and two terms as chair of Education in Acoustics. He served as chair of the Physics Department at ISU, and also as president of the Indiana Academy of Science, where he also was chosen as speaker of the year for 1998. After retirement from ISU in 1998 he accepted an appointment as Executive Director of CSUI, a consortium of Midwestern Universities.
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