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Re: [Phys-l] Physics First



I've written a lot about this before, so I'll try to be brief here. Anyone interested in finding more details of the things I've described earlier, can check the archives.

Bottom line: "Physics first" is okay if also accompanied by "physics last."

* * * Some possible good outcomes...* * *

(1) Only 20% of students nation-wide take "physics last." The other 80% might get zero physics if the current 9th-grade science class is not "physical science." In this case "physics first" gets some physics presented to those who would not get any physics at all --- ever.

(2) As mentioned by others, chemistry and biology could take advantage of this. (Will they?)

* * * Some pitfalls... * * *

(3) Many administrators will think, "physics is physics; if we're teaching it in 9th grade, we can eliminate the lower-enrollment senior course."

(3a) Since any 9th grade science in most states can taught by a teacher with license for middle-school science, if "physics" is placed there, and the senior course is eliminated, administrators can eliminate the physics teacher. In schools where this happens, the total physics curriculum in that school will be taught be a teacher who has taken only one college-evel physics course and was probably an education major (and not a science major at all) or was perhaps a biology major.

(4) Administrators and guidance counselors sometimes realize that high school students wanting to go to engineering schools need senior-level physics, but they have routinely assumed students with interest in life science, e.g. medical school, need to take extra biology in high school and don't need chemistry and senior physics. The opposite is true. Life science, especially medical science, actually requires more rigorous chemistry and physics than biology. Those students coming to college with medical aspirations and whose HS counselors steered them into more biology (and not physics) pay the price in college of getting poorer grades in college chemistry and physics, and therefore hurt their GPA and chances for med school. We have seen this over and over again. Thinking their physics is done because they took "physics first" will exacerbate this problem.

* * * A semi-neutral comment... * * *

(5) If there is presently a "physical science" course being taught as 9th-grade science, then "physics first" is nothing but educational buzzword hoopla. The traditional 9th-grade physical science class that's been taught for decades essentially *is* physics first. That doesn't mean it couldn't be taught better. But when it is taught well it is what the "physics first" advocates say we need, yet we've had it all along.


Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D.
Professor of Physics and Chemistry
Bluffton University
Bluffton, OH 45817
(419)-358-3270