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WOODROW WILSON SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL

COURSE SYLLABUS

COURSE:                          Physics1                                                TEACHER: Ms. A. Benjamin

DEPARTMENT:          Science                                                   PHONE:        (202) 282-0120

CREDIT:                           1.00 Carnegie Unit                       CONFERENCE HOURS

                                                                                                                       Before or after school, Pd 5-6

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

The Physics 1 course is designed as a comprehensive introduction to physics for high school students with a wide range of interests and abilities.  The course meets student’s intellectual needs while challenging them to use physics to make informed decisions about personal and societal issues.  The course places heavy emphasis on critical thinking and problem-solving.  The student is expected to complete all assignments and maintain an interactive notebook.  This will require reading, mathematical problem solving, graphical analysis, experimentation, and creativity.  Prepare to work hard and have some fun figuring out why we study physics!

CONTENT STANDARDS:

Scientific Investigation and Inquiry: P.1. Broad Concept: Scientific progress is made by asking relevant questions and conducting careful investigations. As a basis for understanding this concept, and to address the content in this grade, students should develop their own questions and perform investigations.

Motion and Forces: P.2. Broad Concept: Newton’s laws of motion and gravitation describe and predict the motion of a vast variety of objects.

Conservation of Energy and Momentum: P.3. Broad Concept: The laws of conservation of energy and momentum provide independent approaches to predicting and describing the motion of objects.

Mechanics of Fluids:  P.4. Broad Concept: All objects experience a buoyant force when immersed in a fluid

Heat & Thermodynamics: P.5. Broad Concept: Energy cannot be created or destroyed; however, in many processes energy is transformed into the microscopic called heat energy, that is, the energy of the disordered motion of atoms. As a basis for understanding this concept, students:

Waves:  P.6. Broad Concept: Waves carry energy from place to place without the transfer of matter.

Electromagnetism: P.7. Broad Concept: The phenomena that fall into the categories known as electrostatics and electromagnetism are due respectively to the behavior of stationary and moving charged particles.

Nuclear Physics: P.8. Broad Concept: Nuclear processes are those in which an atomic nucleus changes; they include radioactive decay of naturally occurring and man-made isotopes and nuclear fission and fusion processes.

MATERIALS

Interactive notebook, graphing calculator, post-it-notes, index cards, colored pencils

Textbook:  Foundations of Physics         CPO Physics Lab Manual 

Glencoe Physics Principles and Problems

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

1. Regular attendance is required.  A note from home must support all absences.  Five unexcused absences during any advisory could result in failure.  Double periods are equivalent to two class periods.  It is the student’s responsibility to turn in missed assignments and to arrange to make up missed exams or quizzes.  Three unexcused tardy’s to class will be treated as an unexcused absence.
2. Students are expected to bring all materials (i.e. textbooks and interactive notebooks) to class each day.
3. Students frequently work in teams and are expected to develop the skill required to contribute to and benefit from working in cooperative groups.
4. The advisory grade will be based on tests, quizzes, homework assignments, group presentations, laboratory work and interactive notebooks.  All assignments should be completed according to guidelines provided and turned in on time.
5. The work shown, and your approach, is more important than the answer itself.  All tests (and most other work in the course) should be done in pencil, not done in pen.  Check the answer for odd problems (in the back of the book) after you have come to an answer of your own.  Do not spend more than fifteen minutes on any one problem, nor more than an hour on any one night's assignment; if you run out of time, this suggests a problem in either your approach or in my expectations.  In either case, tell me the next day, whether or not homework is checked.  All assignments are due at the beginning of class time, not later.  Late penalty for homework: 30% immediately + 5% added at 3:30 p.m. each day.
6. The final grade for the course will be based on the average of four advisory grades will include a final exam as the fifth grade.  The final will be comprehensive.

GRADING SCALE---Based on total points per advisory

90 – 100             A

80 – 90                B

70 – 80                C

60 – 70                D

COURSE OUTLINE

First Advisory

Forces, centripetal motion,  universal gravitation

Vectors, motion, 2-D motion

Momentum, energy, work, and power

Second Advisory                            

Thermodynamics

Waves and Sound

Quantum theory

The Atom and the Nucleus

Third Advisory                               

Properties of Light

Geometric Optics

Electrostatics and Electric fields

Electric current and circuits

Fourth Advisory                            

Magnetism and electromagnetic induction        

Fluids                                                                                   Parents Signature

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