Physics Program

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. But this book contains two optional chapters with more challenging math content (Pressure and Buoyancy, and Geometric Optics) and can be used in a 10th or 11th grade course as well. For a thorough explanation of the great advantages to “physics first," please read our   September 2013 Newsletter . This article also lays out our two-track (grade-level and honors/accelerated) plan for high school science and math. 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 text is not an upper-level vector/trig-based course; for an advanced, vector-based text, see our book   Physics: Modeling Nature . Student instructions for five complete laboratory experiments are included in the appendix…