Re: [Phys-l] Physics First

["Josh Gates-fac" <Josh_Gates-fac@nobles.edu>]

> I think that a properly structured course for the ninth grade would 
> not be a dumbed-down "physics for poets," as some have suggested it 
> would have to be. Hewitt's physics program, while not heavily 
> mathematical in the traditional sense does use many aspects of 
> mathematics to make the concepts clear, including heavy emphasis on 
> ratios, and on what happens to one variable in a relation when 
> another is changed. These are valuable concepts that are frequently 
> assumed to be already in the student's tool-kit when they arrive in 
> the 12th grade, but are usually not, since they have boon only 
> minimally exposed to them, if at all. The ability to think through a 
> physical situation qualitatively is something that needs to be 
> carefully taught and is usually not done at present. If a ninth grade 
> course spent plenty of time nurturing that skill, I think the 
> students would be much better off by the time they got to college, 
> even without a traditional 12th grade course.
	I definitely agree that the 9th grade course really can't be a
traditional intro topic sequence, as the lack of math skills and
experience will make it devolve into the kind of course that you're
talking about - phenomenological memorization, at best.  
	I think that the real opportunity here is to recognize that, and not feel
beholden to the kinematics, dynamics, energy, elec., mag., oscillations
sequence.  Little will be possible other than some memorization on most
topics, which will of course be forgotten by 12th grade.
	Recognizing this, I think that the key is to plan an exclusively
skills-based curriculum, focusing on all of those things that we decry our
11th/12th grade students lacking: graph analysis, experimental design,
rudimentary error analysis, linear sequential thinking, practical lab
skills such as soldering, using lab hardware, and instrumentation, a real
attention to units, and scientific literacy (I mean both some basic
knowledge about "real life" topics and the fostering of a critical eye of
scientific and pseudo-scientific claims).  I'm still planning the
curriculum, but I'm thinking about pursuing these skills in topics where
there's also a real chance of meaningful physical understanding and some
out-of-the-classroom applicability, like oscillators (thinking sound
mostly), moon phases and eclipses, electronics (phenomenologically here,
not getting into the nuances of E and V as much as building up intuition
for what V means, for what components do, how they function together, and
practical experience following diagrams and building devices by hand),
energy, and projectile motion (without bogging down in the algebra).