Physics

About this curriculum

Introductory Physics  is ideal for the "physics first" high school science program, which places a physics-based course in the freshman year. We believe physics logically belongs at the start of the high school science sequence because it includes so many foundational skills and concepts that chemistry and biology studies can build upon later. (For a full explanation of our recommended science sequence, please see this article .) We understand, however, that many will need to place physics in 10th or 11th grade, so this book is adaptable for that purpose. Two optional chapters ("Pressure and Buoyancy" and "Geometric Optics") have been included with more challenging math content for those older students. Students should be enrolled in concurrent algebra I to use this book, which is standard track mathematics for 9th grade. We make our exercises challenging, requiring students to utilize multiple concepts and skills to arrive at an answer, but nothing higher than basic algebra is required for this text. This book does not use trigonometry; for our advanced physics text, please see our other book,  Physics: Modeling Nature .…