Syllabus Overview
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School |
856-425-9600 |
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School Description |
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Instructor |
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Course Description |
Physics C at ORHS is based
on College Board curriculum standards. Students are encouraged, but not
required, to take the AP examinations. |
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Student Prerequisites |
All students must have had
a prior physics course such as Physics B or general physics and must be
co-enrolled in calculus. |
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Textbooks |
The textbook distributed to
the students is “Physics for Scientists and Engineers” by Serway and
Beichner, 5th Edition, 2000. A classroom set of Halliday, and
Resnick, 4th Edition, is available for additional problems. |
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Ancillary Material |
Teacher-generated notes are
available. Homework hints are posted daily on a teacher-managed Web site.
During the AP review period, review packets created by the teacher with
embedded AP problems are available for student use. |
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Technology |
An electronic student
response system is used for review of concepts. Laptop computers equipped
with data acquisition hardware and software is available for laboratory use.
Wireless access to the internet is provided in the laboratory. The instructor
maintains a Web site for student use from home. Students are expected to use
the TI-89 programmable graphing calculator in solving problems. |
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Assessments |
In addition to the
assessments detailed in each unit, a summative exam consisting of multiple
choice and free response components is given at the end of the unit. Frequent
quizzes for formative assessment are given. Homework (approximately 5-8
textbook problems per night) is graded for completion and spot-checked for correctness.
There is a major emphasis on lab work, most of which is inquiry-based. Some
lab reports are formal (complete) and some are partial with emphasis on the
skill or concept being taught. In April, a full-length practice AP exam is
given. |
Unit: The Electric Field (1 week)
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Objective |
Student Activity |
Assessment |
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Charge and Coulomb’s Law |
Electric Force Lab: Students charge 20-cm strips of electrical tape by
sticking them to the desk and pulling them up. They are then asked to come up
with an estimate of the excess charge on each strip (assuming charges are
equal) in this inquiry based lab. Alternatively, they can charge
aluminum-coated Styrofoam beads. |
Formal Lab Report |
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The electric field |
Electroscope lab: Inquiry-lab in which students figure out how to charge the
electroscope (+ and/or -) without actually touching it with a charged object.
( ½ day) |
Written procedure |
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Point charge distributions |
Water stream lab: Students are asked to deflect a stream of water (poured from cup to
cup) with a charged rubber rod. They are asked to explain how this happens. (
½ day) |
Written verbal explanation |
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Continuous charge
distributions |
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Motion of charged particles
in an electric field |
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Unit: Gauss’s Law (1 ½ week)
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Objective |
Student Activity |
Assessment |
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Electric flux |
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Gauss’s Law (general) |
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Gauss’s Law and various
continuous charge distributions |
Students derive electric
fields associated with charged conductors and non-conductors and produce
appropriate graphs. These problems come from former AP examinations. |
Worksheet graded |
Unit: Electric Potential (1 ½ weeks)
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Objective |
Student Activity |
Assessment |
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Electric potential and
potential difference |
Real-life Demo Lab: Vandegraaf generator studies. This lab had its
origin one year when a new fire alarm was inadvertently set off when the
instructor discharged the vandegraaf generator, resulting in evacuation of
the entire school. The vandegraaf operates at 350,000 V (surface potential),
and the smoke detector was 2m from the surface. Students were asked to
determine the potential at the location of the smoke detector before the
vandegraaf is discharged with a grounded discharge wand, and to come up with
a theory on why the alarm was triggered. |
Mini-lab: Potential
calculation and theories about what caused the smoke detector to trigger the
alarm. |
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Potential difference in
uniform electric fields |
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Potential and point charges |
Simulation lab: Using E-field plotter program (© Bob Nelson, Physics Dept., |
Informal assessment |
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Potential and continuous
charge distributions |
Students derive electric
potentials for continuous charge distributions and produce appropriate graphs.
Problems obtained from former AP examinations. |
Worksheet graded |
Unit: Capacitance (1 week)
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Objective |
Student Activity |
Assessment |
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Conductors |
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Capacitance |
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Gauss’s Law and capacitance |
Procedure for using Gauss’s
Law to analyze parallel plate, cylindrical, and spherical capacitors is
developed and practiced. |
Worksheet completion |
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Charge on a capacitor |
Capacitor lab: In this inquiry-based lab, students first learn to charge and
discharge a capacitor in an RC circuit with an AA cell, and plot the voltage
as a function of time using a voltage probe. They are then told that, given
the resistance of the circuit, they should be able to figure out how much
charge was stored on the capacitor from the charge and discharge curves.
Then, given the voltage of the cell, they are told to calculate the
capacitance of the capacitor and compare it to the value printed on the
capacitor (2 days). |
Formal lab report |
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Combination of capacitors |
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Energy stored in capacitors |
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Dielectrics |
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Unit: DC Circuits (2 weeks)
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Objective |
Student Activity |
Assessment |
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Ohm’s Law |
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Resistivity |
Resistivity lab: In this inquiry-based lab, students are told to determine the
resistivity of carbonized paper. To do so, they must construct resistors from
the paper, and measure the resistance along with the length and
cross-sectional area of the paper strips. The requirement that the
resistivity must come from the slope of a linear graph is made (2 days) |
Formal lab report |
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Electrical Power |
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Electromotive force and
internal resistance |
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Equivalent resistance |
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Kirchoff’s Rules |
Multi-loop circuit lab: Students construct multi-loop circuits or are
provided with simulations of such circuits. Programmable calculators (TI-89) are
used to solve equations simultaneously to analyze the current in each loop.
(1 day) |
Mini-lab report circuit diagrams and calculations |
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RC Circuits |
RC circuit lab: Students construct RC circuits with known resistors and capacitors.
Computers with data acquisition hardware and software are used to analyze the
circuit. Time constant and amount of charge stored on the capacitor must be
obtainable from graphs generated (2 days) |
Formal Lab Report |
Unit: Magnetostatics (2 weeks)
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Objective |
Student Activity |
Assessment |
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Magnetic force on moving
charges and currents |
Magnetic force demonstration lab: Inquiry-based lab in which students attempt to
construct a device that shows the existence of a magnetic force on a
current-carrying wire using common lab equipment (1 day) |
Informal assessment |
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Path of moving charge in
magnetic field |
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Hall effect |
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Biot-Savart Law |
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Parallel conductors |
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Ampere’s Law |
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Solenoids and Toroids |
Solenoid lab: Inquiry-based lab in which students are given an air-core solenoid, a
current probe, and a magnetic field sensor and told to determine how many
layers of wire are wrapped around the solenoid by measuring how the magnetic
field varies with the current. (2 days) |
Formal lab report |
Unit: Magnetic Induction (2 weeks)
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Objective |
Student Activity |
Assessment |
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Magnetic flux |
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Gauss’s Law of magnetism |
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Faraday’s Law of Induction |
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Lenz’s Law |
Faraday’s Law of Induction lab: Inquiry-based lab in which students are provided
with two solenoids (one which fits inside the other), an iron bar, computers,
and voltage sensors and told to come up with a method to illustrate Faraday’s
and Lenz’s Laws and quantitatively analyze the results. (2 days) |
Formal lab report |
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Induced emf and electric
fields |
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Generators and motors |
Motor/generator presentation lab: Students
dissect a small electric motor or generator, and using digital photographs or
other diagrams, produce a PowerPoint presentation describing how it works (2
days) |
Assessment of presentation |
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The Maxwell Equations |
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Unit: Inductance (1 ½ weeks)
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Objective |
Student Activity |
Assessment |
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Self-inductance |
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RL circuits |
Demonstration of Time lag in a circuit containing an
inductor: Students are asked, as a
class, to try different ways to actually show the difference between a
resistor-only circuit and an RL circuit when a switch is opened or closed. Showing
that the inductor slows the response of the circuit is very difficult, and
only the best experimenters are likely to succeed! |
Student demonstration |
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Energy in magnetic fields |
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Mutual inductance |
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Electronic oscillations in
LC circuits |
Differential equation worksheet: Differential equations for electronic oscillator;
similarities with mechanical oscillators. |
Worksheet completion |
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The RLC circuit |
Synthesized music presentation lab: Students do an internet investigation and create a
PowerPoint lesson describing how electronic music is produced. Alternatively,
they may dissect a cheap piece of electronic equipment and describe how it
works (2 days) |
Assessment of presentation |