Revolution in Science Education: Put Physics First!

A time traveler from the year 1899 would be continually amazed by our advanced technology—our cars and airplanes, our skyscraper cities, our TV, radio, computers, and communication abilities. Probably the traveler would be most shaken by our science, from astronomy to zoology. The only place in which this visitor would be comfortably at home is in most of our high schools.

Amazing things are really beginning to happen in the reform of high-school science education, but one needs increased efforts to build momentum. In a previous column ( Physics Today, April 1995, page 11 ), I noted with mock amazement that students were still taking biology (or earth science) in ninth grade, with 50% going on to a year of chemistry and maybe 20% taking a third year, the dreaded physics, as juniors or seniors.

Since then, a group centered at Fermilab’s education section under Marjorie Bardeen has held two intensive workshops, bringing together scientists and teachers with an important sprinkling of Washington-based movers and shakers, who serve as an informal advisory committee, which I chair. These include Bruce Alberts of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), Rodger Bybee of Biological Sciences Curriculum Studies, George Nelson of Project 2061 of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Shirley Malcom of AAAS, and Gerald Wheeler of the National Science Teachers Association. Out of these workshops came an outline or framework for a three-year science curriculum designed for all students, in which the subject order is reversed: 9th grade, physics; 10th grade, chemistry; and 11th grade, biology. We insisted that the standards propagated by NAS and AAAS required a minimum of three years of science and that the order does matter. The recently released National Research Council report, Physics in a New Era, ¹ puts it beautifully: “Because all essential biological mechanisms ultimately depend on physical interactions between molecules, physics lies at the heart of the most profound insights into biology.”

Of course one can say the same about the need to master basic physics concepts to understand such crucial topics as chemical structures, atomic binding, the gas laws, or that battle flag of chemistry, the periodic table of the elements. And again, as any reader of The Double Helix knows, a knowledge of a lot of chemistry is required to begin a study of modern molecular-based biology. ²

The rational order

We know of more than a hundred schools around the country, about 60% of them private, that have switched the sequence to the rational order. Some have been teaching “physics first” for more than ten years.

Since 1995, I have been thinking deeply about the huge task of writing a new curriculum that would bind the three years into a coherent, core science curriculum for all students. The fail-safe, default curriculum would start with conceptual physics, using the math that was being taught in eigth and ninth grades. Starting with phenomena in the real world around the student, the course would progress through standard, important physics topics, emphasizing those that would be most helpful for future applications to chemistry and biology. I believe the course must conclude with a month on atoms, their structure, and how they bind to form molecules. Here is where the physics year ends and chemistry begins. Repetition is encouraged; the boundaries between the disciplines are lowered so that the transition is seamless.

Physics topics would be repeatedly used in chemistry so that students continue to deepen their understanding through applications. The same thing would happen in the transition from chemistry to biology. Chemistry (and physics) concepts are continually reviewed, embellished, and used. Laboratory work must be inquiry dominated (the opposite of cookbook labs) and designed to illuminate concepts. (See the article in this issue by Ramon Lopez and Theodore Schultz, page 44 .)

Since a new curriculum only gets done once in a hundred years or so, let’s get it as right as we can. Science majors will surely go on to advanced placement (AP) courses and other elective science courses, so here we are mostly concerned with future citizens. (This set includes a lot of scientists!)

Both science and nonscience students could, and I believe should, be required to take a fourth year of science. I strongly recommend that the fourth year be devoted to Earth science for its integration of disciplines, its intrinsic importance, and its daily applicability. Other possibilities are astronomy, environmental science, computer and computational science, and AP versions of physics, chemistry, and biology.

The three-year sequence must include a lot of process in addition to content. How does science work? How did we discover some of these things? Why is science such a universal culture? How do the traits of skepticism, curiosity, openness to new ideas, and the joy of discovering the beauty of nature affect the process of science? Long after all the formulas, Latin words, and theories are forgotten, the process will be remembered. The goal of teachers using the new curriculum would be to produce high-school graduates who will be comfortable with a scientific way of thinking.

Mathematics must be brought in to this curriculum revolution early because math phobia is a near fatal disease unless the student is inoculated at a young age. Math phobia contributes strongly to the separation of entering ninth graders into the classes of “ready” and “not ready.” Seamlessness is essential so that middle-school (and younger) students are prepared, by attitude as well as skills, for the new high-school experience. Obviously, the kindergarten through eighth-grade teachers must be included in our long-term revolution.

Another feature of our 21st-century school is teacher conferences. Not annually but weekly. The math and science teachers must work together in collegial professional development so that the connections of the disciplines are emphasized and the coherent elements emerge. Imagine if the math and physics teachers can design the strategy of the week so that Monday’s math is used in Tuesday’s physics! I give this activity a costly five hours per week (it’s only money). Here are other profound connections: How does history influence science, physics influence philosophy, chemistry influence architecture, neuroscience influence linguistics, music, and mathematics? We must eventually include the teachers of social studies and humanities. I’m not sure what to do with economics.

If we want this reform to last well beyond the first few decades of the 21st century, we must try to anticipate dramatic, mind-numbing changes in science, technology, and human knowledge. The connections we now see may be guidelines for future reorganizations of our knowledge and ways of thinking.

Some of these connections should be part of the core curriculum; others can appear in science, technology, and society-type courses. The arguments and debates in these teacher conferences will be worth the price of admission, but they must have useful and convincing outcomes. High schools will be true communities of learners. (Imagine a roll of drums here.)

So we have continuous professional development, the barriers between the sciences and between science and math are removed, but we maintain respect for the disciplines. The 21st-century graduates, all of them, can connect subjects all over the intellectual map. The highest form of literacy.

For this and any serious reform of science education we need to improve the recruitment, training, retention, and evolution of our teacher workforce. A broad knowledge of science is an essential part of the rational ordering. If our leaders—presidents, governors, congressmen—are serious, the federal government can surely support a revolutionary change in our educational system.

From my list of more than 100 schools that are doing physics first, I have learned that, since there is no curriculum, the schools have innovated. They use books like Paul Hewitt’s Conceptual Physics (HarperCollins, 1993) or Arthur Eisenkraft’s Active Physics (six volumes, It’s About Time Inc, 1998), which are great books but not designed as a prerequisite for chemistry and biology. So the teachers add, embellish, and improvise. The anecdotal reports from many, if not all, of these schools indicate that after an awkward transition from biology-chemistry-physics to the rational order, it is the way to go. Enrollment in elective science and AP science courses explodes and young women take AP physics! The anecdotal information is heartwarming but must be followed up with hard data. Of course, the schools must manage the teacher assignments to handle the influx of students taking ninth-grade physics. I am in touch with numerous schools that are considering the switch but are concerned about the serious teacher shortage problem.

Connections to other fields

To my knowledge, none of the pioneer schools has gone back. Our optimism has recently been greatly rewarded. In the past few months, the school districts of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and San Diego, California, have opted for all incoming students to take physics in ninth grade, followed by a year of chemistry, then biology. This is a huge domino! San Diego is the sixth largest school system in the nation; Cambridge has a small system but an impressive parent body. So we see some real action.

I have a vision, still a bit cloudy, of a real revolution in high-school science inevitably extending to the entire curriculum. We need to upgrade the economic and social status of teachers so that our best students will want to teach. And we need to help make seamless transitions from middle school to high school to college.

Resistance to change is awesome. Change will be expensive, but since education has been declared essential to national defense, ³ money is no obstacle. Our colleagues who teach physics in high schools must bear the crucial responsibility of making physics—no, science—palatable, important to the lives of their students, exciting to a large new population who may well be the least prepared and the most fearful. My experience is that physics teachers don’t like to “do” freshmen. They also worry about those well-prepared freshmen that may be turned off by a too simple, relatively nonmathematical exposure to physics. Any ninth grade physics can’t be worse than ninth grade biology! Well prepared freshmen can be offered honors and AP physics if they qualify.

Some critics are concerned that ninth-grade physics may not be suitable for college preparation. Fortunately, college preparation is not a law of nature but a decision made by college admissions officers or the Educational Testing Service or some educational bureaucrats. They must be brought into the discussion so that the students are tested for grasp of concepts, grasp of connections, and grasp of the process of science, in addition to a reasonable skill at problem solving. As we make progress in a real curriculum, the application of physics to chemistry and biology will produce a higher level of sophistication that should gladden the hearts (if any) of the college admissions people. Finally, as Algebra I becomes increasingly part of the armaments of the ninth grader, the course for this grade level can evolve, as it has to, to prepare students for chemistry. Other problems proliferate: Some education experts say physics is too abstract for ninth graders. You can add to this list.

Again I plead with my colleagues to help out. The vision is full of difficulties and may even be wrong in some details. I have read about variations, such as including a new clumping of grades 7, 8, 9, and 10 into middle high school and 11, 12, 13, and 14 into lower college, which would encourage (require?) two years of college for all students. The future scientists will not be injured. We all know students who can solve physics problems but have no grasp of concepts. Attention to all the students will surely expose an occasional genius who had never been subjected to a logical sequence. We must all market the new strategy. So go visit your nearest high school; make sure our time traveler from 1899 will be rapturously uncomfortable there.

(Now imagine eight bars of Thus Spake Zarathustra. Thank you.)