Putting the applied cart before the basic horse

To some physicists, the traditional order of teaching science in high school—biology, then chemistry, then physics—is back to front. Making sense of living things is easier if you already know how their molecular building blocks behave and interact chemically. Making sense of chemical reactions is easier if you already know how electrons behave and interact physically.

This so-called Physics First approach hasn’t caught on beyond a few pioneering pockets, perhaps because physics requires more math than chemistry does, and chemistry requires more math than biology does. What’s more, by starting with biology, students progress from the familiar world of bees and birds toward the abstract world of F = ma and pV = nRT.

But regardless of the order in which they’re taught, biology, chemistry, and physics are all basic sciences. With a good grounding in all three, a student can go on to study any of them more deeply or to study one or more of their applied offshoots. And because the core of scientific literacy lies in biology, chemistry, and physics, students who don’t want to pursue science also benefit from learning the three basics.

Not having any children, I hadn’t thought much about high school science. But I have five young nieces and three young godchildren. Two of them, Miriam and Sarah, will be 11 next month. Time, I thought, to pay attention to their scientific education.

Miriam will be attending Ysgol Eirias in Colwyn Bay, a town on the coast of North Wales. (“Ysgol” is Welsh for “school.”) On page 14 of the school’s prospectus , you’ll find this brief description of the science faculty:

Sarah is headed for Sherwood High School in Sandy Spring, Maryland. According to its website, the school is in the process of implementing an academy model . Sherwood’s Academy of Science aims to provide students with

Sherwood’s science academy sounds great—until you look at the courses it offers. They’re organized in two “pathways,” environmental science and health professions. Biology and chemistry appear in both, but physics is absent. Sarah could, however, study horticulture, if she chose the environmental science pathway, or medical careers science, if she chose the health professions pathway.

I commend Sherwood for putting together two coherent science courses that mix basic and applied sciences and which prepare students for employment. It’s conceivable that some Sherwood students will be inspired to become scientists not by the challenge of understanding nature, as I was in my physics class, but by the challenge in their horticulture class of growing a more nutritious carrot.

On the other hand, the physicist in me recoils at the apparent absence of my favorite science. Physics is also absent from the two pathways in Sherwood’s Academy Engineering and Technology: simulation and gaming, and engineering.

I’m also troubled by what strikes me as the premature and limited specialization implied by the two—and only two—science pathways. Students’ interests change, as does the local job market. A curriculum focused on a handful of applied sciences, it seems to me, will offer fewer potential opportunities than one focused on basic sciences.

Let’s not put the applied cart before the basic horse.