Review of Physics Curricula Offered by CPO In partial fulfillment ofPHY690: Master ProjectPhilip CoburnDepartment of Physics, SUNY Buffalo State College, 1300 Elmwood Ave, Buffalo, NY 14222 <[email protected]>Acknowledgment: This manuscript was prepared in partial fulfillment of requirements for PHY690: Masters Project at SUNY- Buffalo State College under the guidance of Dr. Dan MacIsaac.ABSTRACTTom Hsu, founder of CPO (formerly known as the Cambridge Physics Outlet) and his colleagues have developed textbooks and lab manuals for courses in physical science, early high school physics, and late high school physics. This review summarizes the similarities and distinguishing features among the three curricula: Foundations of Physical Science, Physics A First Course, and Foundations of Physics. Each program offers not only a textbook, lab manual, and teacher resources, but also the distinctive plywood CPO lab equipment with which to conduct the labs. Though claiming to be inquiry-centered, the programs are found instead to be lab-based, as the lab manuals and equipment do not offer sufficient scope for the level of student initiative implied by inquiry. The Foundations of Physics text falls short in its ability to communicate difficult concepts clearly; Physics A First Course fails more narrowly to communicate clearly about vectors. Though Foundations of Physical Science has simplifications that will have to be later un-learned, it is found to provide the most coherent basis for an effective lab-centered course. Coburn Page 1 of 15INTRODUCTIONEvery spring, physics teachers take stock of the curricular materials they have been using and consider whether better textbooks, equipment, and lab manuals are “out there.” This review summarizes my findings after examining the offerings from CPO, formerly known as the Cambridge Physics Outlet. While best known for their plywood physics equipment, recently theyhave developed textbooks and lab manuals as part of cohesive curricular programs. I evaluated these materials while teaching physics, primarily to 9th graders, at a private selective day school in Buffalo, NY. We have been using Paul Hewitt’s text Conceptual Physics (1997) with all levels of freshmen for at least eight years.THE PROGRAMS AND THEIR SHARED FEATURESCPO offers three different physics program levels for high school. The three programs share names with their associated textbooks: Foundations of Physical Science (2nd edition, 2005a, abbreviated FOPS), Physics: A First Course (1st edition, 2008a, abbreviated PAFC), and Foundations of Physics (1st edition, 2004a, abbreviated FOP). All three programs have four components: student textbooks, student lab manuals, equipment kits, and a teacher’s guide and toolkit.The textbooks are all authored by CPO founder Thomas C. Hsu. Each contains eight or nine units (detailed in Table 1), which are typically divided into three chapters. Most chapters contain three sections. Uniquely, every individual page in each section is self-contained; text never carries from one page to the next. The textbooks also share 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 text. By breaking the text into manageable chunks, providing space for related visuals, and cuing students with paragraph topic phrases, Hsu provides helpful Coburn Page 2 of 15reading aids. Unfortunately, some pages are “topped off” with distracting or confusing filler, such as the discussion of “g forces” on page 98 of FOP, but, in general, the format works well. While his writing does not match the folksy readability of Conceptual Physics (Hewitt, 1997), Hsu’s language is generally clear.The equipment kits also share similar features. Each kit allows one lab group to do all of the investigations in the associated Investigations manual (see Table 2 for prices). The equipmentis “beautifully crafted” (Hubisz, 2008), particularly the tracks and support pieces made from heavy-duty birch plywood. They have the visual and tactile appeal of toys (Waugh, 1995) while being designed to support a scientific approach to data collection. For example, the Energy Car track has pre-marked locations every 5 cm, allowing for repeatable measurements from one trial to another. It also simplifies the process of collecting data at regularly spaced intervals, such as inan investigation of the speed of an object rolling down a ramp. The teacher’s guides for the three programs (Hsu, 2005b; Hsu, 2008c; and Hsu 2009) share a similar design. Rather than expanding on the text as most teachers’ manuals do (for instance, Hewitt, 2009), these guides provide step-by-step guidance for each page of the lab manual: an overview, a sample teacher-student dialog, an image of the Investigations page, and examples, data, and answers. The dialogs, in particular, are designed for teachers “new to the subject area, as they identify possible student misconceptions and highlight important learning content (Hsu, 2009, p. viii).” The teacher’s guides also include lists of consumable materials for investigations and answers for the end-of-chapter questions in the textbooks; student textbooks do not have any of these answers.Finally, the programs share a broadly similar price structure (see Table 2 for details): roughly $70 for the textbook, $20 for the lab manual, $90 per student for the bundled package, Coburn Page 3 of 15and $2000 for a complete equipment kit. Notice that the bundles serve different numbers of students. Lab equipment is also available G la carte. The cost of outfitting a classroom with the full program varies widely. For instance, a single Foundations of Physics class of 24 students working in groups of 4 would cost about $12,500 to outfit (one program bundle plus five additional equipment kits), or $520 per student. Five sections of 24 FOP students (120 students) taking the same course at different times of day would cost about $13,000 (five program bundles plus one additional equipment kit), or only $108 per student.DIFFERENCES AMONG THE PROGRAMSThough the programs share many features, there are also some key distinctions. Many of the programs’ differences spring from their intended audience. As stated on the CPO website (www.CPO.com, under FAQ’s), FOPS and PAFC are intended for 8th to 10th graders, while FOP is intended for 10th to 12th graders. In addition, as their
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