For professor Meera Chandrasekhar, physics is like peeling the layers of an onion. As the peeling moves past the “Aha!” layer, more understanding is achieved.

Chandrasekhar, this year’s recipient of Baylor University’s Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching, pushes her students to do their own onion peeling through a hands-on classroom approach.

“She’s teaching people the fundamentals of science by using an engaging process,” said Shawn Hayden, Chandrasekhar’s teaching assistant of four years. “It’s not like a normal physics class.”

The Cherry Award honors “outstanding professors who are distinguished for their ability to communicate as classroom teachers … with a positive, inspiring and long-lasting effect on students, along with a record of distinguished scholarship,” according to the award’s [website](http://www.baylor.edu/cherry_awards/).

Chandrasekhar, who was selected from three finalists, is the first physics professor to receive the award since its inception in 1991.

“I was very surprised (about receiving the award), a bit of shock mixed with that,” she said. “The competition was pretty stiff, but (my chances of winning) were 33.3 percent.”

Peter Pfeifer, department of physics and astronomy chairman, was excited when he found out Chandrasekhar won.

“To have a faculty member who has been able to deliver teaching and create opportunities and deliver physics to a broader audience receive the award made it very special,” he said.

Chandrasekhar will receive $265,000 and will teach in residence at Baylor next spring. MU’s physics department will also receive $35,000 for the development of teaching programs.

The Academy for Teachers-Inquiry and Modeling Experiences for Physics First, Chandrasekhar’s initiative, runs on a grant ending this fall from the National Science Foundation.

The department hopes to use some of the Cherry Award money to continue Physics First.

The program provides ninth grade teachers throughout the state of Missouri with the tools to strengthen their own understanding of physics and, in turn, enrich their students’ experience with physics.

“If there’s no spark of excitement, no one will be a good teacher,” Pfeifer said.

Chandrasekhar has brought that spark and kept the fire burning in the physics department.

“If she hadn’t been so successful in sharing that spark, our programs would not have been successful,” Pfeifer said.

Chandrasekhar’s spark has been kindled throughout the years, beginning at a young age.

Her father, a lifelong learner, bought a set of books entitled “The World of Children.” Chandrasekhar found a black and white picture of a prism in one of the books.

“‘What is this prism stuff?’ I asked myself,” she said. “‘I want to see one of these things.'”

When she found a piece of a broken window pane and tried to refract the light, she failed.

“I had ignored the geometry of a prism,” she said. “Not understanding the geometry meant not understanding what broke up white light into its component colors.”

A few years later, she understood the geometry. She was peeling through the layers of physics, one experience at a time.

Although understanding a range of scientific concepts is sometimes difficult for non-scientific audiences, Chandrasekhar emphasized its importance in everyday life.

Science explains the natural world and makes the technology we have today possible, she said.

“We need to know about how it works rather than accepting it as a total black box,” Chandrasekhar said.

Chandrasekhar pushes her students to question their own conceptions and misconceptions of physical concepts through hands-on activities and student-led discussions, peeling through one layer of understanding at a time.

“Students are pretty timid in engaging in the process at first,” Hayden said, “but by the end (of the class) they are a lot more inquisitive.”

After four years, Hayden has also caught the inquisitive bug. He recognized Chandrasekhar’s efforts to raise curiosity levels for science.

“She’s spent her whole career becoming a better teacher,” he said. “Her passion and love for teaching all age levels is kind of contagious.”