Active learning techniques are generally considered to be any classroom activities in which students become an active participant in learning, instead of a passive listener to a lecture. Service learning activities are generally experiential (real life) and reflective problem-based learning activities in which students enrolled in an academic course provide a needed service to a community partner. In the fall semester of 2016, one section of a calculus-based Physics I course included both active learning and service learning components. One of the several active learning activities used in this course was that demonstrations, traditionally performed by the instructor, were performed by the students for an audience of seventh- and eighth-graders. Prior to the presentations, the groups of students met with the instructor to learn and practice the demonstrations. After perfecting their presentations, the students invited seventh- and eighth-graders from an inner city school to a “Day of Science,” where they presented the demonstrations for part of the day. This paper reports on the active learning and service learning activities involved in the “Day of Science” and analyzes the results.

In our technology driven world today, it is extremely important to increase the science literacy of our non-science majors. At Stockton University, this goal is attempted to be accomplished through our General Studies courses. This paper describes a lab-based course in the General Studies curriculum, ‘The Science of Ice Cream’. At Stockton University, General Studies courses are interdisciplinary courses, designed for all students in four areas of study: general arts and humanities (GAH), general interdisciplinary skills and topics (GEN), general integration and synthesis (GIS), general natural sciences and mathematics (GNM), and general social and behavioral sciences (GSS). The GNM courses are designed to meet four main goals: to examine the broad concerns of science, to explore the nature of scientific process and practice, to provide students with an understanding of mathematics and the natural sciences, to acquire appreciation for how scientific knowledge of the physical and natural world is attained and evaluated. The topic of ice cream was chosen because it provides a rich environment, full of practical applications of thermodynamics and fluid dynamics, as well as general concepts in physics, biology, food science, and chemistry. Since this course is designed for both science and non-science majors, it provides a platform to discuss applications of concepts learned in introductory physics. It is sometimes difficult to get non-science majors excited about science, but the laboratory exercises, where the students use the concepts learned in lecture to make ice cream, provide the students with interesting and approachable examples of the physical concepts.

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Artisanal crop farming commonly employs organic and sustainable principles and focuses on traditional methods, heirloom cultivars, and pronounced consideration for seasonality, consumer preference, and environmentally healthy, ethical, and equitable farming. Certain requirements must be met for a fruit or vegetable to be labeled as organic, and many artisans go to the trouble of meeting them. Artisans often use natural alternatives to pesticides and herbicides and pick and harvest their crop by hand. Organically grown crops tend to contain higher levels of phenols, and some also have more ascorbic acid. Artisans may also grow heirloom varieties of crops, which existed prior to commercialization. The local and sustainable nature of artisanal fruits and vegetables adds to their desirability among many consumers.