Re: [Phys-L] Math phobia (Was: Legitimate Phys-L topics.)

[Ze'ev Wurman <zeev@ieee.org>]

On 1/6/2014 12:51 PM, John Clement wrote:
> A lot of foreign schools mix the curricula up, so that science and math are
> taught together.  Physics, chemistry and biology are not separate subject,
> but are mixed together.  So application and algorithms are taught both at
> the same time.
As far as I know, this is a widely-believed misconception. I am unaware 
of many (truly, even of one) high school systems that "mix the curricula 
up," or where physics, chemistry, or biology are NOT separate subjects.

What many school systems do is teach multiple sciences in *parallel* at 
every high school grade, rather than teach them sequentially at 
different grades as we tend to do in the U.S. They also try to align 
topics of different sciences (and math!) in each grade so they will be 
mutually supportive to a degree. But each subject is taught by a 
subject-matter specialist teacher, rather than teaching a mishmash 
science that mixed-up curriculum will typically represent.

In such systems one has varying schedules each day of the week so one 
can have 2-3 weekly hours of bio, 1-2 hours of chem and 2 hours of 
physics in, say, grade 9 (each by different teacher), and the 
proportions may change across the high school grades and student choices 
(e.g., focus on life sciences, liberal arts, math-physics, etc.)

Many systems (including in the U.S.) offer some kind of senior projects 
that may also be multidisciplinary. These are not the way a curriculum 
is delivered but rather capstone high school activities.

Could you please provide support for the "mixed together" curricula?

Ze'ev