The idea of "physics first" has been debated here before.
One point that has never been clear to me is whether the people who advocate
physics first assume there is another physics course in the junior or senior
year for college-prep students, or whether the 9th-grade physics course is
the only physics course taught at that school.
If a traditional junior/senior physics course remains then I have no problem
with "physics first." I would prefer that it be "physical science" which
includes some chemistry and some earth/space science. I also think school
personnel should make it clear that students headed to college with any
desire to pursue engineering or science (including pre-medicine and biology)
should take the traditional junior/senior chemistry/physics courses.
If "physics first" means 9th-grade physics is the only physics offered at
that school, then I am totally opposed to it.
Contrary to what some have said, my experience is that students who had a
good HS physics course do best in my college physics course. The people who
struggle the most in my course are those who declare they are pre-med or
biology majors, yet in HS they took the minimum math and science. Those who
don't make it typically took a year of general science followed by two years
of some sort of biology, and they took a couple years of HS algebra. These
students end up being deficient in chemistry, physics and math, and in
college they just can't overcome their deficiencies in addition to keeping
up their other courses and maintaining some sort of social life.
The numbers here are depressing. Only one-in-two entering college freshmen
interested in life-science took HS chemistry, and only one-in-four took HS
physics. Retention of these students (with neither HS chemistry nor
physics) in a college science major is quite low. Ninth-grade physics is
not going to fix this unless it prepares and prompts students to take the
traditional HS chemistry and physics.
Physics-first (or preferably physical science) followed by life-science and
then some elective science courses would be fine for the bulk of HS
students. But those headed into any science area (including biology and
pre-medicine) need the traditional HS chemistry and physics courses in the
junior and senior year of high school. (And those courses need to be taught
well, and the students need to study.) At a small college like mine we get
to know every student, we know what science/math they took in high school,
and we frequently know their HS science teachers personally. We have no
doubt that students who did well in good HS junior/senior chemistry/physics
have the best success rate in college science.
PS. In Ohio, a teacher licensed to teach middle-school science can teach
any science subject in grades 4-9. This means 9th-grade physics could be
taught by a teacher who had only one physics course in college. There is a
shortage of HS physics teachers. Some schools looking at 9th-grade physics
are doing so because it alleviates the problem of finding a "real" physics
teacher. Ohio is not the only state where this is possible.
Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D. Phone/voice-mail: 419-358-3270
Professor of Chemistry & Physics FAX: 419-358-3323
Chairman, Science Department E-Mail edmiston@bluffton.edu
Bluffton College
280 West College Avenue
Bluffton, OH 45817