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Re: [Phys-l] Physics First Revisited




-----Original Message-----
From: phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
[mailto:phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu] On Behalf Of Richard
Hake
Sent: Monday, January 26, 2009 5:38 PM
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] Physics First Revisited

White's article reinforces points made by Ken
Ford (1989) in "Guest Comment: Is physics
difficult"
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
FOR PHYSICS, ON THE OTHER HAND, WE
HAVE FASHIONED A CLIFF. THERE IS NO GRADUAL RAMP,
ONLY A NEAR-VERTICAL ASCENT TO ITS HIGH PLATEAU.
When the cliff is encountered for the first time
by. . . (14- or) . . . 16- or 17-year olds, it is
small wonder that only a few have courage (and
the skill) to climb it. There is no good reason
for this difference of intellectual topography.
First-graders could be taught some physics . . .
(Hammer 1999, Snyder 2001). . . , second-graders
a little more, and third-graders still more. . .
. (Love 2001) . . . [and Middle School'ers still
more. . . (Hubisz 2001 a,b)]. . . Then for the.
. .(ninth-). . . , eleventh- or twelfth grader, a
physics course would be a manageable step. Some
might choose to take it, some not, but few would
be barred by lack of 'talent' or background. (My
CAPS.)
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
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====

A similar and eloquent exposition of this point was made by Larry
Malone, FOSS co-director at the Lawrence Hall of Science, in the Summer
2007 APS Forum on Education newsletter,
<http://www.aps.org/units/fed/newsletters/summer2007/malone.html>

"... the question of when to teach physics has stubbornly resisted
consensus. For me, however, the answer is straightforward: physics
first. By first, I mean first grade. Physics is too large and too
important to postpone until high school. Physics is the branch of
science that provides the anchors against which the other disciplines
pull for explanatory models and confirmation. Where the positioning of
physics in the high school curriculum escalates to the level of a
philosophical battle, it may indicate that opportunity has already been
missed. To me physics first means start with the five- and
six-year-olds, spending quality time guiding them to experience and
describe the properties of objects and materials, and to discover what
happens when they interact. Then comes physics second, moving students
into operational experiences with force and energy-magnets, bulbs,
sounds, pushes and pulls. Follow this with physics third, discovering
relationships between interacting objects and systems. And then physics
fourth, with the introduction of the particulate nature of matter and
the conditions under which matter experiences transformations. Physics
fifth brings an introduction to mathematical models and a new logic for
displaying, thinking about, and explaining phenomena. In this scenario,
as students enter high school, the notion of physics first has lost its
gravity. Too late for physics first, just the next level of the
encounter and new concepts to deepen an already substantial body of
physics knowledge."

Larry Woolf