In order to facilitate the involvement of all disciplines in the integrated science sequence, a number of themes have been chosen. Each discipline will bring the concepts and examples from their discipline to bear on the theme. The overall theme which has been chosen is a house with the surrounding grounds and environment. This theme brings variety and familiarity, an almost limitless set of examples of the concepts of science in a context which gaurantees connectedness with the student's experience.
This is a beginning attempt to related the theme to the basic concepts of physics and astronomy.
| Week 1 | |
Week 2 |
Day 1 Aug 25
Measurement Ch 1
Your home in the universe. The universe at various scales. |
Day 2 Aug 27
Motion Ch 2
Properties of matter: mass, density. |
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Day 3 Sep 1
Holiday |
Day 4 Sep 3
Forces Ch 2Description of motion. Auto travel to your home.
Causes of motion. What causes your car to move? What resistances must be overcome? If you were carrying a box sitting on top of your car, how would you have to drive to get it home without sliding off? |
| Week 3 | |
Week 4 |
Day 5 Sep 8
Circular motion Ch 3
What additional forces act when your car rounds a sharp curve? Are they real forces? Describe the forces that hold planets, moons and satellites in orbit. Describe the principles of conservation of momentum and angular momentum. |
Day 6 Sep 10
Work, Energy, Power Ch 4
How is force related to work? When you exert a force do you always do work? How can you do the same amount of work with less force? |
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Day 7 Sep 15
Energy, momentum Ch 4
How is work related to energy and power?How do you minimize impact force? Dish on floor; car on tree; seatbelt function. |
Day 8 Sep 17
Structure of matter Ch 9,11
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| Week 5 | |
Week 6 |
Day 9 Sep 22
Atomic structure, nature of atoms
Ch 9,11 |
Day 10 Sep 24
Structure and phases of matter
Ch 12 |
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Day 11 Sep 29
Physical properties, minerals, phases
Ch 21 |
Day 12 Oct 1
Physical properties, minerals, phasesCh 21 |
| Week 7 | |
Week 8 |
Day 13 Oct 6
What does temperature measure? How is heat related to energy? Ch 5 |
Day 14 Oct 8
Why does metal heat up much more rapidly than water? It takes a lot of energy to melt ice and produce water, so how is it that water and ice can exist at the same temperature?
Ch 5 |
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Day 15 Oct 13
What kind of ways can heat be transferred, and what determines how fast it transfers. What variables will affect your heating and cooling bill? How can the sun heat the earth through 93 million miles of vacuum?
Ch 5 |
Day 16Oct 15
How do you use electricity to get heat to flow "uphill" from a cold to a hot area? What do refrigerators, air conditioners and heat pumps have in common? How do the first and second laws of thermodynamics limit the ways we can use heat?
Ch 5 |
| Week 9 | |
Week 10 |
Day 17 Oct 20
Heat applications: how do you decide whether to use electricity or natural gas to heat your home? Why is a heat pump better than electric resistance heaters?
Ch 5 |
Day 18 Oct 22
Heat applications
Ch 5 |
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Day 19 Oct 27
What causes electric charge to move through wires, and why are metals so much better at conducting it? What measurements would help you predict your electric power bill? What parts of your electrical system protect against shock? fire?
Ch 8 |
Day 20 Oct 29
Describe how electricity flow through a circuit is like the flow of water through a pipe. Why is your house wired in parallel rather than in series?
Ch 8 |
| Week 11 | |
Week 12 |
Day 21 Nov 3
How do electric and magnetic forces differ? In what places in your house will you make use of these forces. Ch 8 |
Day 22 Nov 5
Applications of electricity and magnetism. How do motors and generators work? Why do you need a transformer for your doorbell. How does it differ from the transformers in your fluorescent lights?
Ch 8 |
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Day 23 Nov 10
What kind of condtions lead to periodic motion and traveling waves. Describe what is happening when sound travels across a room. What can be measured to characterize musical sound?What comes to your ear when a sound is heard? What does your ear measure when it perceives pitch,loudness and quality? Waves can reflect, interfere, refract and diffract: what sound experiences demonstrate these wave properties?
Ch 6 |
Day 24 Nov 12
What kind of conditions lead to resonance in sound. How can you predict the pitch from a string or air column musical instrument? How does your ear detect the properties of sound?
Ch 6 |
| Week 13 | |
Week 14 |
Day 25 Nov 17
Light and other electromagnetic waves are characterized by frequency, wavelength, and power. When you see bright white light in your home, what can you infer about those variables? What other types of EM radiation are present in your home?
Ch 6 |
Day 26Nov 19
What property of light allows you to see clearly? How do glasses act to correct vision defects? What are the similarities and differences of the eye and a camera?
Ch 6 |
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Day 27Nov 24
What properties of light produce color, and how does your eye detect it. Describe how to predict the combination of two colors of light. Is light composed of particles or waves? You can't "see" an atom with visible light: why not? What kind of waves would allow you to see an atom? How do differences at the atomic level make one piece of glass clear, another opaque? What is the atomic basis of color? Why does each element have a distinctive "spectral fingerprint" of colors emitted?
Ch 7 |
Day 28 Nov 26
Thanksgiving holidays |
| Week 15 | |
Week 16 |
Day 29 Dec 1
Why are x-rays more dangerous than visible light; they are both electromagnetic waves? Is your microwave oven emitting dangerous radiation? Your cell phone? Your TV? How does radiation interact with matter? What are the common sources of ionizing radiation? Is there radon in your home? If you scaled up a gold nucleus to the size of a basketball, what would be the size of the gold atom? What is in the nucleus and how do we know? What causes some nuclei to be radioactive?
Ch 7,10 |
Day 30 Dec 3
Stars
Ch 18 |
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Day 31Dec 8
Cosmology
Ch 18 |
Day 32Dec 3
Planets
Ch 15,16,17 |