Extrasolar Planets

IFS Fractals

Game of Life

Planetary Orbits

Contacting ISAW
The ISAW project is based in the Physics Department at Bridgewater College. To share questions, affirmations and suggestions, contact the project director:

Dr. Richard L. Bowman
Dept. of Physics
Bridgewater College
Bridgewater, VA 22801

phone: 540-828-5441

email: rbowman@bridgewater.edu

Purpose

ISAW (pronounced "I saw") is a project to develop web-based activities that are interactive visualizations of scientific concepts. While designed primarily for high school and college students, these activities are also written for the lay person with some scientific literacy.

• Visualization: Most persons learn better when a scientific concept or its consequences can be visualized. All of the ISAW activities emphasize visual output so that a user will leave the activity saying, "I saw that!".
• Interactive: Learning is also enhanced when a participant interacts with the material rather than just passively reads it. The ISAW activities allow the user to experiment and then visualize the results of that experimentation.
• Web-based: The ISAW web-pages allow any person, regardless of the particular computer and web browser in use, to interact with the concepts under study. Advances in HTML forms and the JavaScript language allow this goal to be pursued. However, it is not fully realized as some browsers do not interpret all of the HTML and JavaScript features fully. (See the warning below.)

Current Activities

• Extrasolar Planets
• IFS Fractals
• Game of Life
• Planetary Orbits

Work In Progress

New and revised simulations and laboratory exercises are being developed and added to this site as time allows. Check back from time to time to see what has been changed. Report all problems to the email address at left.

Using The Activities

These simulations may be used directly at the ISAW site at Bridgewater College. However, if they are to be used in a classroom/laboratory setting, then the instructor may wish to copy them to their own server. Permission is hereby granted to do such copying if the hyperlinks to ISAW and the author are left intact. Check back often at the ISAW site so as to have available the latest version of each activity on your own server.

Warnings

• The above simulations were tested using Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 and Netscape Navigator 4. Earlier versions of these browsers may not render these web pages properly.
• Browsers must be set to allow cookies and to be able to use JavaScript in order for these simulations to function properly. (Cookies are used to store values entered in a form so that the next web page can use these values for its calculations.)
• Text-based browsers will not be able to use these activities since the resulting plots are images.

Other Physics Simulations

• MERLOT Physics Portal (http://physics.merlot.org/) --click on "Browse Learning Materials" and then search for "simulations"
• The Interactive Shockwave Physics Modules (http://ippex.pppl.gov/interactive/) --explore simulations on matter, electricity & magnetism, energy and fusion.
• Physics 2000 (http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/indes.pl) --take an interactive journey through modern physics.
• Virtual Physics Laboratory (http://www.phy.ntnu.edu.tw/ntnujava/) --peruse Fu-Kwun Hwang's collection of java applets at National Taiwan Normal University.
• comPADRE - Digital Resources for Physics & Astronomy Education (http://www.compadre.org/portal/index.cfm) --explore the many collections.

JavaScript Resources

• Web Authoring For Interactivity Using JavaScript And Forms (http://www.bridgewater.edu/cescc/acadcomp/js/). - tutorials, examples, and references (book and online resources)