I've said it on this list before, and I'll keep saying it.
A physical science course (elementary physics and chemistry) in the ninth
grade followed by biology in the tenth grade, chemistry in the eleventh
grade, and physics in the twelfth grade makes a lot of sense. Some schools
have been doing this for 50 years or more, and it still works well.
Putting the "only" physics course in the ninth grade makes no sense. If
this is what Leon Lederman and followers suggest (and I have heard him say
this) then I am dead set against it.
Joel Rauber recently said "It strikes me we have always had a physics first
situation." He went on to explain that he means physical science just like
I described. I agree with Joel that we have always had this. So I just
plain don't understand what the "physics first" people are trying to say.
Didn't they ever look to see that "physical science first" is what we have
been doing all along, or did they come through a school system that didn't
do that?
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