Chemical Education Today
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The Physics Teacher: The Physics First Curriculum for High School: Do Chemists Even Know This Is Happening? by Roy W. Clark
If you are a teacher of general chemistry (as I was for 36 years), you may assume that your entering students had high school physics just last year and are eager to learn more chemistry than they did in high school chemistry during their junior year. This was the high school sequence that I assumed all of these future doctors and chemists before me in the lecture room had completed. In all those 36 years I was quite ignorant of what high schools were doing in science, what texts they taught from, and what level of accomplishment I could assume from their graduates. This was a serious mistake. By reading The Physics Teacher (TPT) for the last ten years I have discovered that high schools in the U. S. currently have a curriculum controversy in their science departments known as “Physics First”. The idea seems simple:
1. Physics should not be complex-sounding stuff. It should be conceptual physics, a type of physics pioneered by Paul Hewitt (1).
2. The concepts of physics should be taught largely, but not totally, without math, and with lots of demonstrations.
3. Physics should be taught in ninth grade, followed by chemistry and then biology.
The Physics First concept was suggested in 1998 by Leon Lederman (2), and has made some inroads into high school teaching since the new century began. As you might suspect, these ideas have been a hard sell at state and local boards of education. If Physics First has an acronym, I am unaware of it. Assuming it does not, I suggest PIF: Lederman would say, “Physics Is Fundamental.” Hewitt would say, “Physics Is Fun.” Teens would say, “Physics Is Far-out!” If this is your first acquaintance with PIF, then Lederman’s guest editorial in The Physics Teacher is recommended reading. Follow this by reading some actual results as reported by Oliver Dreon’s Pennsylvania study in TPT; details are available on the
TPT Featured Articles Lederman, Leon M. Physics First? TPT 2005, 43, 6. Dreon, Oliver, Jr. A Study of Physics First Curricula in Pennsylvania. TPT 2006, 44, 521. Bessin, Bob. Why Physics First? TPT 2007, 45, 134.
Internet (3). Then read two TPT articles: Bob Bessin’s “Why Physics First?”, a view from a teacher who is using PIF; then follow this by reading “Considering Physics First” by Art Hobson. Hobson’s concern is with administrators who are wont to make the mistake of fissioning PIF into science and non-science tracks. I agree with Hobson that, at the high school level, physics is for everyone. There should not be two tracks. Finally I have saved a surprise for last. In researching this column, I found PIF-related papers in this Journal (4–6). Much to my amazement, and thanks to the comprehensive JCE Index that now goes back to Volume 1 (1924), I also found the information in Figure 1 (7). In the article itself, Reeves goes on to give reasons why physics should precede chemistry in high schools. Why is this paper so amazing? Because it is PIF 58 years early! It was followed in 1945 by an even more convincing paper by Hoag, “Should Chemistry or Physics Come First?” (8). Fortunately physics teachers eventually came to the same conclusion Reeves did: physics should come first. Good luck, physics teachers. Literature Cited 1. Hewitt, Paul. Conceptual Physics; http://www.conceptualphysics. com/ (accessed Oct 2007).
THE PLACEMENT OF PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY IN HIGH SCHOOLS Elton T. Reeves, Kellogg High School, Kellogg, Idaho Hunter1 in his book, “Science Teaching,” notes the fact that more than half the schools offering physics and chemistry give them in the preferential order of chemistry followed by physics. That is, the majority of schools offer chemistry as a junior subject and physics as a senior elective. This would seem to the writer to be wrong on at least three major counts.… 1Hunter,
“Science Teaching,” American Book Co., New York City, 1934, pp. 48–9.
Hobson, Art. Considering Physics First. TPT 2005, 43, 485. Figure 1. Excerpt from Reeves’s 1940 JCE paper (7).
Chemical Education Today
2. Lederman, L. M. ARISE: American Renaissance in Science Education; Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory: Batavia, IL, 1998; FERMILAB-TM-2051. http://ed.fnal.gov/arise/ (accessed Oct 2007). 3. See EPAPS Document No. E-PHTEAH-44-015608, available at http://ftp.aip.org/cgi-bin/epaps?ID=E-PHTEAH-44-015608 (accessed Oct 2007). 4. Sheppard, K.; Robbins, D. M. J. Chem. Educ. 2005, 82, 561–566. 5. Mason, D. S. J. Chem. Educ. 2002, 79, 1393. 6. More, Michelle B. J. Chem. Educ. 2007, 84, 622. 7. Reeves, Elton T. J. Chem. Educ. 1940, 17, 442.
8. Hoag, J. Barton. J. Chem. Educ. 1945, 22, 152.
Supporting JCE Online Material
http://www.jce.divched.org/Journal/Issues/2008/Apr/abs490.html Abstract and keywords Full text (PDF) with links to cited URLs and JCE articles
Roy W. Clark is an emeritus member of the Department of Chemistry, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN 37132;
[email protected].
