Honors Physics

Course Overview

In this semester course (0.5 credit), students will use the Science and Engineering Practices and Crosscutting Concepts of Science to build an understanding of: forces and motion and types of interactions the relationship between energy, conservation of energy, energy transfer, and energy in everyday life, and wave properties, electromagnetic radiation, and information technologies and instrumentation. Engineering design is incorporated as students consider technological solutions to real-world problems. This course supports environmental literacy and with the successful completion of Chemistry Honors fulfills the Physical Science graduation requirement.

High school physical science learning is intended to equip students to address the following essential questions as identified within the Next Generation Science Standards. 

1. How is energy transferred and conserved? How can we design more reliable systems to meet our communities’ energy needs?
2. How can one explain and predict interactions between objects and within systems of objects? What can we do to make driving safer for everyone?
3. How do we use radiation in our lives, and is it safe for humans? 

The high school Performance Expectations (PEs) in the physical sciences address these essential questions and build on 6-8 ideas and experiences.  They blend Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCI) with Scientific and Engineering Practices (SEP) and Crosscutting Concepts (CCC) to support students in developing usable knowledge to explain real-world phenomena in the physical sciences.  In Physical Science, students regularly engage in asking scientific questions that drive their investigations and lead to increasingly sophisticated evaluation of data and their presentation.  Students also have opportunities to learn and apply engineering-specific practices such as designing solutions to identified problems. Read the full NGSS storylineLinks to an external site. for high school physical science. This course is utilizing units from OpenSciEd that have received the NGSS Design Badge for high-quality instructional materials. 

Unit OVERVIEW

This unit is anchored by the Texas power crisis of February 2021. Students read articles and wonder about the complex social, environmental, and physical realities that led to such a crisis. In the first lesson set, students develop models for energy flow through our electrical infrastructure systems, from a generator to our communities. By the end of this lesson set, students can explain what happened in Texas at multiple scales, from the electrons in the wires to the power companies making difficult decisions. In the second lesson set, students consider engineering trade-offs, criteria, and constraints inherent in making decisions about our energy systems, and apply them in a culminating task: design a reliable energy solution that meets our communities' needs, as articulated by interviews with friends and family members. The task is designed to support students in taking agency and to give students the tools to speak up in their local and global community for a better energy future, one that aligns with their own values, and those of their families. This OpenSciEd unit earned the NGSS Design Badge Links to an external site. for high-quality instructional materials. 

Unit OVERVIEW

This OpenSciEd unit is designed to introduce students to the concept of momentum in an intuitive and grounded context. The learning is anchored by a puzzling set of patterns in traffic collision data over time: while overall, vehicle fatalities have been decreasing steadily for decades, the trend appears to have stalled, and collisions and injuries have been increasing. This phenomenon provides the context in which to investigate the physical relationships between mass, velocity, momentum, force, time, and acceleration, basic physical quantities that provide the foundation for the study of mechanics. Students will analyze statistics on vehicle collisions, analyze the motion of vehicles stopping short, and model vehicle collisions as part of an engineering task to reduce the chances of injury in a collision by testing and evaluating solutions that could change force interactions in the system.

Unit OVERVIEW

How do we use radiation in our lives, and is it safe for humans? This unit begins with a news article about the unconventional use of microwave ovens to store electronics. Students are motivated to test the behavior of a Bluetooth speaker playing music from a device inside the oven when it is not running. They also test what happens when it runs and heats up food. This phenomenon sets the stage for exploring wave behavior, the interactions of matter with electromagnetic radiation, and how we can use these interactions in different technologies to digitize, store and transfer information. ​​Throughout the unit, students use simulations to model field interactions and energy transfer through electromagnetic radiation. They conduct investigations using the microwave oven to explore how different materials interact with microwave radiation, and how the structure of this device affects energy transfer. Students explain how the frequency and amplitude of electromagnetic radiation affects its interactions with matter and evaluate the wave and photon models of electromagnetic radiation. Students obtain and communicate information about the uses of electromagnetic radiation, its safety, and methods of protection. They apply these ideas in a culminating task to evaluate whether 5G technology is safe. This OpenSciEd unit earned the NGSS Design Badge Links to an external site. for high-quality instructional materials.