Review of Physics Curricula Offered by CPO Philip Coburn PHY 690 Every spring physics teachers take stock of the curricular materials they have been using for the year and consider whether better lab equipment textbooks lab manuals and the like are out there This review is an attempt to summarize my findings after looking in depth at several offerings from CPO formerly known as the Cambridge Physics Outlet Although best known for their plywood physics instructional equipment they have in recent years developed textbooks and lab manuals that they offer as part of cohesive curricular programs I evaluated these materials in my role as physics teacher at a private selective day school in Buffalo NY The school requires all 9th graders to take physics at one of three levels advanced regular and conceptual We have been using Paul Hewitt s text Conceptual Physics 1997 with all levels of freshmen for at least eight years CPO offers three different physics program levels for high school The three programs share names with their associated textbooks Foundations of Physical Science 2nd edition 2005 abbreviated FOPS is a physical science program with a mix of physics and chemistry topics geared for 8th to 10th graders according to the CPO website FAQ s at www cpo com Physics A First Course 1st edition 2008 abbreviated PAFC is a physics first program also designed for 8th to 10th graders Foundations of Physics 1st edition 2004 abbreviated FOP is a physics program designed for 10th to 12th graders and non physics major college students All three are authored by CPO founder Thomas C Hsu Each program has four components a set of student textbooks a set of student lab manuals called Investigations an equipment kit and a teacher s guide and teacher toolkit Prices for each program are listed in the table Note that each equipment kit includes all the necessary materials to conduct all of the labs in the associated Investigations manual for one lab group excluding Coburn Page 1 of 13 consumables A look at the price table shows that in essence CPO offers a set of lab equipment for free if you buy a classroom set of texts and manuals The three programs have several features in common They all claim to be inquiry centered with the Investigations lab manuals at the core of the curriculum more on this later All three textbooks also feature a distinctive landscape format that leaves room for a column of figures and graphs on the right and a column of paragraph title phrases on the left of the central column of text Each page is self contained text never carries over from one page to the next This format is parlayed into a real strength By breaking up the text into managable chunks providing related visuals and cuing students with paragraph topic phrases Hsu provides several concrete aids to reading for his audience While the writing in all three books does not match the folksy readability of Conceptual Physics 1997 the language is adequately clear in most cases Two of the texts FOP and FOPS are printed in two colors black and blue rather than the traditional four The real variations occur in approach and content I will outline these next Overview of contents and approach FOPS Foundations of Physical Science 2005 contains a mix of physics and chemistry topics The physics units covered are Forces and Motion Work and Energy Electricity and Magnetism Sound and Waves and Light and Optics In addition there are units on Properties of Matter Changes in Matter compounds and reactions Water and Solutions and Heating and Cooling FOPS tends to present a shallow mostly non mathematical theory for phenomena and then focus on one or two particularly interesting applications For instance the section on electromagnets pp 164 167 has as much information on building an electromagnet by wrapping wire around a nail as it does information about the connection between electric current and magnetism Coburn Page 2 of 13 Of particuar interest to New York teachers Hsu s mathematical approach and depth in FOPS are significantly simpler than that used in Regents Physics many Regents Physics equations are not presented Hsu employs limited use of algebra in FOPS but does not use trigonometry or formal vectors All force and motion problems are presented in one dimension the use of signs to represent vectors in opposite directions is dealt with through hand waving not clear exposition To figure out the net force we usually have to make some forces positive and some negative so they can cancel out FOPS p 51 Free falling objects and projectiles are not addressed mathematically Circular motion is not presented One positive is that a standard process for solving mathematical science problems is presented in detail with an example p 16 Perhaps optimisitically the CPO website provides a table with correlations among the textbook lab manual and New York state standards providing a preview of the ways in which the textbook could be used to meet Regents requirements FOPS has one particular strength it has the highest level of integration between the text and lab manual of the three programs The beginning of each chapter of the text lays out for the student the investigations associated with that chapter For each chapter the first investigation is meant to be done before lecture on a topic so that students can see the phenomenon in question before formally studying it cf Arnold Arons principle of concept first name after in Arons 1990 p 31 In addition chapters one and two explicitly and extensively address process science skills such as designing an experiment and using techniques that are accurate and repeatable Furthermore chapter two presents concepts of position speed and distance through the lens of developing a graphical and mathematical model from data similar to that gathered in one of the investigations Both implicitly and explicitly the text draws connections to the investigations even if only to point Coburn Page 3 of 13 out that the strings used in your lab investigations behave just like ropes used in larger machines FOPS p 70 In general I would characterize FOPS as a lab centered physical science curriculum Its mathematical depth and rigor are poorly suited to Regents physics but it has a lot of potential for physical science course or non Regents physics course Overview of content and approach PAFC Physics A First Course 2008 contains all of the standard introductory physics units with a little chemistry thermodynamics and
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