Physical Science Study Committee

Scope and Contents of the Collection The ESI-PSSC-EDC collection is a partial record of some of the major activities of these groups in the areas of curriculum development and educational reform. The records cover the period 1957-1970 and include the beginnings of the PSSC Physics text (which preceded the formation of ESI), the merger of ESI with the Institute for Educational Innovation to form EDC in 1967 and the activities of that group until 1970. The collection has been arranged in two series. Series I...

Scope and Contents of the Collection Notebooks from the MIT Radiation Laboratory (1942-1947), correspondence about the MIT Laboratory for Nuclear Science and the Brookhaven National Laboratory, and information about his research on atomic clocks and molecular beams document Zacharias's scientific work. There is extensive correspondence with colleagues and professional organizations about scientific and educational issues. Correspondence documents his work on the Physical Science Study Committee and there are reports,...

Abstract The Physical Science Study Committee, and its subsequent offshoots, Educational Services Incorporated (ESI) and Education Development Center (EDC), sought to achieve a comprehensive change in the teaching of science, particularly physics at its inception, in the secondary school system. The genesis of the original committee was at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1956 with a project initiated by Jerrold Zacharias, James Killian, and Francis Friedman. The collection consists of...

Abstract

The collection spans the years from approximately 1956 to 1971, with the bulk of the records dating from the 1960s.