Bridging Physics and Biology Teaching through Modeling

TL;DR

This paper advocates for integrating scientific modeling as a core teaching practice to bridge physics and biology education, emphasizing shared methods to enhance interdisciplinary understanding.

Contribution

It introduces a unified framework of scientific modeling to connect physics and biology teaching, highlighting shared practices and model-based reasoning.

Findings

Models serve explanatory, predictive, and functional roles in both disciplines.

Shared modeling practices can reconcile differences between physics and biology teaching.

Framing interdisciplinary teaching around modeling enhances student competencies.

Abstract

As the frontiers of biology become increasingly interdisciplinary, the physics education community has engaged in ongoing efforts to make physics classes more relevant to life sciences majors. These efforts are complicated by the many apparent differences between these fields, including the types of systems that each studies, the behavior of those systems, the kinds of measurements that each makes, and the role of mathematics in each field. Nonetheless, physics and biology are both sciences that rely on observations and measurements to construct models of the natural world. In the present theoretical article, we propose that efforts to bridge the teaching of these two disciplines must emphasize shared scientific practices, particularly scientific modeling. We define modeling using language common to both disciplines and highlight how an understanding of the modeling process can help reconcile apparent differences between the teaching of physics and biology. We elaborate how models can be used for explanatory, predictive, and functional purposes and present common models from each discipline demonstrating key modeling principles. By framing interdisciplinary teaching in the context of modeling, we aim to bridge physics and biology teaching and to equip students with modeling competencies applicable across any scientific discipline.