Physical Setting/Physics Core Curriculum

Physical Setting/

Physics

Core Curriculum

THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK

THE STATE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT



THE UNIVERSITY O F THE STATE O F NEW YORK

Regents of The University

CARL T. HAYDEN, Chancellor, A.B., J.D. ............................................................................Elmira

ADELAIDE L. SANFORD, Vice Chancellor, B.A., M.A., P.D. .................................................Hollis

DIANE O'NEILL MCGIVERN, B.S.N., M.A., Ph.D. . ..............................................................Staten Island

SAUL B. COHEN, B.A., M.A., Ph.D. .....................................................................................New Rochelle

JAMES C. DAWSON, A.A., B.A., M.S., Ph.D. .......................................................................Peru

ROBERT M. BENNETT, B.A., M.S. ........................................................................................Tonawanda

ROBERT M. JOHNSON, B.S., J.D. .........................................................................................Huntington

ANTHONY S. BOTTAR, B.A., J.D. .........................................................................................North

Syracuse

MERRYL H. TISCH, B.A., M.A. ............................................................................................New York

ENA L. FARLEY, B.A., M.A., Ph.D. .....................................................................................Brockport

GERALDINE D. CHAPEY, B.A., M.A., Ed.D...........................................................................Belle Harbor

ARNOLD B. GARDNER, B.A., LL.B........................................................................................Buffalo

CHARLOTTE K. FRANK, B.B.A., M.S.Ed., Ph.D. ..................................................................New York

HARRY PHILLIPS, 3rd, B.A., M.S.F.S. ...................................................................................Hartsdale

JOSEPH E. BOWMAN, JR., B.A., M.L.S., M.A., M.Ed., Ed.D ...............................................Albany

LORRAINE A. CORT?S-V?ZQUEZ, B.A., M.P.A......................................................................Bronx

President of The University and Commissioner of Education RICHARD P. MILLS

Chief Operating Officer RICHARD H. CATE

Deputy Commissioner for Elementary, Middle, Secondary, and Continuing Education JAMES A. KADAMUS

Assistant Commissioner for Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment ROSEANNE DEFABIO

Assistant Director for Curriculum and Instruction ANNE SCHIANO

The State Education Department does not discriminate on the basis of age, color, religion, creed, dis ability, marital status, veteran status, national origin, race, gender, genetic predisposition or carrier sta tus, or sexual orientation in its educational programs, services, and activities. Portions of this publica tion can be made available in a variety of formats, including braille, large print or audio tape, upon request. Inquiries concerning this policy of nondiscrimination should be directed to the Department's Office for Diversity, Ethics, and Access, Room 152, Education Building, Albany, NY 12234.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .vi

Core Curriculum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3

Process Skills Based on Standards 1, 2, 6, and 7 . . .6

Process Skills Based on Standard 4 . . . . . . . . . . . .13

Standard 4: The Physical Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14

Appendices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The State Education Department acknowledges the assistance of teachers and school administrators from across

New York State and the Physics Mentor Network. In particular, the State Education Department would like to thank:

Joseph M. Akramoff George Amann Angela Cigna-Lukaszewski Bernadine Hladik Cook Michael Herzog Elizabeth Hokanson Dennis Hulbert Jim Iak Michael Jabot Reuben James Randy Jenkins Terese Keogh Robert Kruckeberg William Leacock Edmond Nurse Carl Preske Theodore Reiss Charlene Rydgren Valerie J. Suter Andrew Telesca, Jr. Virginia Trombley Butch Weir Joseph Zawicki

Columbia High School, East Greenbush F. D. Roosevelt High School, Hyde Park Syosset High School, Syosset/Hofstra University Johnstown High School, Johnstown Hilton Central School, Hilton Niskayuna High School, Niskayuna Plattsburgh High School, Plattsburgh Rush Henrietta High School, Henrietta Oneida High School, Oneida SUNY Oneonta, Oneonta Scotia-Glenville Schools, Scotia Manhasset High School, Manhasset Phillip Randolph High School, New York W. C. Mepham High School, Bellmore High School of Transit Technology, Brooklyn G. Ray Bodley High School, Fulton Monroe-Woodbury High School, Central Valley Franklin Academy High School, Malone Arlington High School, LaGrangeville Johnson City High School, Johnson City/Binghamton University Au Sable Valley High School, Clintonville Oneonta High School, Oneonta Elba Central School, Elba

The Physical Setting/Physics Core Curriculum was reviewed by many teachers and administrators across the State. The State Education Department thanks those individuals who provided feedback both formally and informally.

The project manager for the development of the Physical Setting/Physics Core Curriculum was Diana K. Harding, Associate in Science Education, with content and assessment support provided by Mary Oliver, Associate in Educational Testing. Elise Russo, Associate in Science Education, provided additional support. Special thanks go to Jan Christman for technical expertise and to Joe Zawicki for preliminary drafts of the document.

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Physics

Physical Setting/

Physics

Core Curriculum

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Physics

PREFACE

This Physical Setting/Physics Core Curriculum is intended to be a catalyst for significant change in the teaching of high school physics. The primary focus of the classroom experience should be on the development of higher order process skills. The content becomes the context and the vehicle for the teaching of these skills rather than an end in itself.

This Physical Setting/Physics Core Curriculum has been written to assist teachers and supervisors as they pre pare curriculum, instruction, and assessment for the physics content and process skills of the New York State Learning Standards for Mathematics, Science, and Technology. This core curriculum, including the skills section, should be seen as part of a continuum that elaborates the science content of Standard 4. The Learning Standards for Mathematics, Science, and Technology identifies key ideas and performance indica tors. This document should serve as the basis for local curriculum development by providing insight for the interpretation and implementation of the core under standings. Key ideas are broad, unifying, general state ments of what students need to know. The performance indicators for each key idea are statements of what stu dents should be able to do to provide evidence that they understand the key idea. As part of this contin uum, this core curriculum presents major understand ings and skills that give specific detail to the concepts underlying each performance indicator.

This core curriculum guide is not a syllabus. It addresses the content and process skills as applied to the rigor and relevancy to be assessed by the in the Physical Setting/Physics Regents Examination. The focus of the examination is the application of skills to real-world situations. The core curriculum has been prepared with the assumption that the content as out lined in the Learning Standards for Mathematics, Science, and Technology at the elementary and intermediate lev els has been taught previously. This is a guide for the preparation of commencement-level curriculum, instruction, and assessment, the final stage in a K?12 continuum of science education. Teachers should recog nize that what is found in this document (including the core content and skills sections) is the minimum content to be assessed. Teachers are expected to provide for horizontal and vertical enrichment. This core curricu lum has specifically been constructed to permit the exploration of the richness of physics. Time has deliber

ately been built into the year to permit students to examine these topics in greater depth or investigate new areas of physics. This time facilitates the inclusion of experiences supporting analysis, inquiry, intercon nectedness, and problem solving. The focus on concep tual understanding in the guide is consistent with the approaches recommended in the National Science Education Standards and Benchmarks of Science Literacy: Project 2061.

Misconceptions greatly influence learning. Students may internalize new ideas, but if the learning is incor porated into incorrect assumptions or ideas, the learn ing is superficial and of doubtful value. Educational research has shown that students typically learn best by moving from the concrete to the abstract; learning is enhanced through the use of manipulatives and handson activities. Teachers can dramatically influence learn ing by providing constructive feedback and by maintaining appropriately rigorous expectations.

Science for All Americans: Project 2061 makes several rec ommendations that foster effective science teaching. The use of inquiry is central to scientific thought and therefore an extremely powerful teaching tool in the physics classroom. Real-world questions to focus the attention of the student, active student involvement, and the collection and use of evidence are essential components of effective science teaching. Since science is a collaborative process, the use of teams (cooperative learning groups) is encouraged. It is important to encourage curiosity and to support academic growth, especially for female and minority students who have been underrepresented in physics.

It is essential that instruction focus on student under standings, mathematical relationships, processes, mechanisms, and the application of concepts. Students, in attaining scientific literacy, will be able to provide explanations in their own words, exhibiting creative problem solving, reasoning, and informed decision

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3

making. Future assessments will access students' ability to explain, analyze, and interpret physics processes and phenomena and generate science inquiry. The general nature of the statements in this guide will encourage the teaching of science under standing instead of emphasizing the memorization of facts. The major understandings in this guide permit teachers a large degree of flexibility, making rich and creative instruction possible, and allowing for multifaceted assessment.

The order of presentation and numbering of all state ments in this guide are not meant to indicate any recommended sequence of instruction. Ideas have not been prioritized, nor have they been organized to indi cate teaching time allotments or test weighting. Teachers are encouraged to find and elaborate for stu dents the conceptual cross-linkages that interconnect many of the key ideas to each other and to other mathe matics, science, and technology learning standards.

Historical Context: If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. -- Sir Isaac Newton, From a letter to Robert Hooke, dated 5 February 1676.

Throughout history new understandings of real-world phenomena resulted from extensions of the work of previous generations. Newton's statement reflects his belief that his work in mechanics and calculus would have been impossible without the solid foundation established by both his colleagues and predecessors. All physics courses should foster an appreciation of the major developments that significantly contributed to advancements in the field.

Greek Origins The foundations of physics can be traced back to the ancient Greeks (600?200 BC), who sought order within the physical events that were understood as either chaotic or mystical. The idea of atoms as the fundamen tal particles of matter had a major influence over much of the scientific investigation that occurred over the course of the next few centuries.

The Foundations of Mechanics On the macroscopic level, the significance of air resis tance on falling objects was established. The enuncia tion of the Three Laws of Planetary Motion applied mathematical relationships at the planetary level. Sir Isaac Newton, using this new vantage point, concluded that a new force, gravity, was the basis for general laws of motion as well as universal gravitation. Newton,

concurrently with Leibniz, developed calculus as a tool for the solution of problems within physics.

Subatomic Investigations On a microscopic level, a relationship between electric ity and magnetism was demonstrated by the induction of voltage in a conductor passing through a magnetic field. Electrolysis was explored; studies established a proportionality between current and the mass of a sub stance generated at an electrode. Radium was discov ered; the existence of three types of radiation--alpha, beta, and gamma rays--was demonstrated. Evidence for both a wave nature and a quantum nature of light was generated during the latter half of the 19th century. The birth of quantum mechanics is fundamental to understanding the ability of light to exhibit both particle and wave characteristics.

Cosmic Developments Observations at the cosmic scale continued as a red shift in the light reaching us from distant galaxies was discovered; the implications of an expanding universe intrigued scientists around the world. The understand ing of gravity was refined early in the 20th century when Albert Einstein introduced both special and gen eral theories of relativity. Einstein's proposal that space and time are intimately and indivisibly linked fostered a spate of activity in theoretical physics.

The Transistor Age The development of the computer is clearly a signifi cant event in the history of science. The invention of transistors spirited in a second generation of mini-com puters and a wide range of electronic devices and applications.

The laws of physics apply from the subatomic through the cosmic levels, an idea whose development can be traced through the history of the science. The contribu tions of Democritus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, Planck, Curie, Hubble, Einstein, Heisenberg, Schr?dinger, Feynman, Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley provide insights to pivotal moments in our field. The physics of today is based upon the achievements of the past. Students should appreciate the significance of these accomplishments and teachers should foster this appreciation.

Laboratory Requirements: The use of scientific inquiry is critical to understanding science concepts and the development of explanations of natural phenomena. As a prerequisite for admission to the Physical Setting/Physics Regents Examination students must have successfully completed a minimum of 1200 min utes of hands-on laboratory experience with

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