Chemical Education Today
Reports from Other Journals
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; royclark@bellsouth.net.