Download AP Course Syllabus - DuBois Area School District

AP Physics B
Overview of Physics Program:
AP Physics has been offered here for nine years. Enrollment is around 40 students a year. The
school requires all AP students to take the AP Exam. Students who enroll in AP Physics must
have completed Trigonometry and be enrolled in AP Calculus or Honors Calculus concurrently.
The school operates on a daily schedule of eight 42-minute periods. AP Physics meets 4 days a
week with a double period for labs one of those days. Average class size is 20 students.
The district requires all students to take some level of physics before graduation. The school
offers AP Physics B, Honors Physics, Physics, and Introduction to Conceptual Physics. The
Honors Physics can be taken in the junior year, but all others are offered as senior year courses.
Students must complete Honors Physics before completing AP Physics B.
The following texts are used in the AP Physics B course:
 Text: Sixth Edition Physics by Giancoli: Pearson Education, Inc., 2006
 Student Pocket Companion - Sixth Edition Physics by Giancoli: Pearson Education, Inc.,
2005
 AP Physics Prep workbooks: Preparing for the Physics B AP Exam with Giancoli’s
Physics, 2004
 Textbook website: http://wps.prenhall.com/esm_giancoli_physicsppa_6
In addition to the texts used, students have access to review questions and practice problems for
each section online through Blackboard. These problems come from the question banks
provided through the text.
Class Structure and Evaluation:
Students in the AP Physics course learn from a variety of instructional strategies. These
strategies include guided discussions, inquiry based activities, laboratories, problem solving
sessions, and group discussions. Students are given opportunities to work with their peers in
order to collaboratively determine solutions to problems or pose questions for further
exploration. Some of the differentiated instruction used includes:
 hands on individual and group laboratory activities
 student presentations
 use of various media approaches such as bulletin boards, online resources, video
presentations, and electronic whiteboards with interactive panels
 use of various data collection technologies such as data probes, data collection software,
and portable laptop computers
 classroom discussion
 tests, quizzes, and homework assignments
 example problems and whole group demonstrations
 projects
AP Physics Syllabus 1
Two or three days a week, class periods consist of whole group demonstrations and examples
followed by small group or individual practice involving problems or activities. During this time,
students are also engaged in discussions of problems or topics explored in class. These discussions
are then summarized and shared with the class verbally or in written form. The remaining days focus
on laboratories and real-life hands-on applications.
Students are also evaluated on problems assigned from the text. These problems are assigned
either on a daily basis or as a long-term problem set. To be awarded full credit, students must show
work in the form of pre-defined problem-solving strategies which include the following:
 visualize the problem
 determine the important ideas
 ask questions
 make connections to previous situations
 draw inferences of how it may be solved
 synthesize the information
 repair understanding when the answer does not appear correct.
Students are also required to complete projects throughout their Physics experience. These
include bridge building, water bottle rockets, mousetrap cars, and the house-wiring/ troubleshooting
projects. Each project requires students to research a problem, complete initial measurements or
mini-labs to help design their solution, design their own solution, build their device, test their final
product, analyze its performance, and make a connection to real-world applications of this product.
Other forms of evaluation include laboratories, quizzes, and tests. The tests include both
multiple choice and free response questions from past AP Physics Exams and test preparation
booklets. Students are allowed to use AP reference tables and calculators on portions of tests.
Course Outline:
1. Introduction/ Mathematical skills
 problem solving techniques
 SI and English systems of measurement and conversions
 graphing and scientific notation
 trigonometric functions
2. Motion in One Dimension
 Displacement and Velocity
 Motion Graphs
 Acceleration
 Free Fall
 Kinematics Equations
3. Two Dimensional Motion and Vectors
 Vectors and Vector Operations
 Relative Motion
 Projectile Motion
AP Physics Syllabus 2
4. Forces and Laws of Motion
 Mass and Inertia
 Newton’s Laws
 Weight
 Fricion
5. Work and Energy
 Work
 Mechanical Energy
 Conservation of Energy and the Work-Energy Theorem
 Simple Machines and Compound Machines
 Mechanical Advantage, Ideal Mechanical Advantage, and Efficiency of machines
6. Momentum & Collisions
 Impulse & Momentum
 Conservation of momentum
 Elastic and Inelastic collisions
 Energy Conservation in Collisions
7. Circular Motion and Gravitation
 Centripetal force and acceleration
 Banking curves
 Orbits
 Newton’s Law of Gravitation
 Artificial gravity
 Center of Gravity
 Torque
8. Fluid Mechanics
 Density & Buoyant Forces
 Hydrostatic Pressure
 Fluid Flow Continuity
 Bernoulli’s Principle
9. Gravitation & Oscillation
 Newton’s Law of Gravitation
 Orbits
 Kepler’s Laws
10. Vibrations & Waves
 The Simple Pendumlum
 Simple Harmonic Motion
 Properties of Traveling Waves
 Properties of Standing Waves
 Wave Interactions
 Superposition
AP Physics Syllabus 3
11. Sound
 Sound Waves
 Doppler Effect
 Sound Intensity and Resonance
 Harmonics
12. Light
 Characteristics of Light
 Interference & Diffraction
 Dispersion of light and the electromagnetic spectrum
 Reflection & Refraction
 Mirrors
 Lenses
13. Electrostatics:
 Charge, field, and potential
 Coulomb’s law and point charges
 Fields and potentials of charges in the same plane
14. Conductors, capacitors, dielectrics:
 Electrostatics with conductors
 Parallel plate capacitors
 Dielectrics
15. Electric circuits:
 Current, resistance, power
 Ohm’s Law
 direct current parallel and series circuits with batteries and resistors only
 Parallel plate capacitors
16. Magnetostatics:
 Forces on moving charges in magnetic fields
 Forces on current-carrying wires in magnetic fields
 Forces on long current-carrying wires
17. Electromagnetism:
 Electromagnetic induction
 Faraday’s and Lenz’s laws
18. Temperature and Heat energy:
 Mechanical equivalent of heat
 Heat transfer and thermal expansion
19. Kinetic theory and thermodynamics:
 Ideal gases
 Laws of Thermodynamics
AP Physics Syllabus 4
20. Atomic Physics and Quantum effects:
 Photons and the photoelectric effect
 Atomic energy levels
 Wave-particle duality
21. Nuclear Physics:
 Radiation and sheilding
 Nuclear reactors
 Mass-energy equivalence
 Nuclear reactions in stars
Laboratories:
The students will perform approximately one lab or “hands-on” activity per week. A formal
lab write-up will be required for many of these labs. Students will complete the labs in groups,
but each student will write their own lab reports and keep these reports in a laboratory notebook.
Each lab will have the following components:
 Title of Lab
 Purpose or Objective of Lab
 Background Information
 Equipment and Set-up
 Procedural Summary
 Data
 Calculations
 Error Analysis
 Questions and Conclusions
Laboratories are started by giving students a question or problem. With teacher support
during whole group or small group guided discussion, students are then asked to create a
hypothesis and determine what must be tested. In addition to what measurements will be taken,
some labs are open-ended and require the students to develop their own procedure and determine
what equipment they will use to prove their hypothesis. After the collection and manipulation of
the data, students are asked to form conclusions and give reasons for error that might have
occurred. If the lab is open-ended, they are also asked to analyze their procedure and determine
what would make it more efficient.
Students are supplied with an assortment of equipment and supplies for each lab. Among
these are some of the latest technologies available including Vernier Lab-Pros, logger-pro
software, and various laboratory sensors. The sensors used for the labs include:
 Motion Sensors
 Accelerometers
 Force Sensors
 Photogates
 Temperature Probes
 Voltage Sensors
 Rotary Motion Sensor
 Nuclear Radiation Monitors
Some labs utilize the TI-89 calculators and the CBL system and Video Point Software.
AP Physics Syllabus 5
Below is a list of the hands-on activities and laboratories students will experience in the AP course:
**These laboratories are designed by the students and require a formal lab write-up in the lab
notebook. Students are required to keep a binder of the other laboratory experiments with all
handouts given during the activities.
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Graphing Motion**
Acceleration of Gravity
Terminal Velocity**
Projectile Motion
Inertial Balance
Friction & Inclined Planes**
Pulley Lab
Hooke’s Law**
Impulse & Momentum**
Conservation of Momentum (Elastic &
Inelastic Collisions)**
Circular Motion**
Torque
Rotational inertia
The Simple Pendulum**
Waves in a Slinky Lab
Ripple Tank waves
Speed of Sound (Resonance)**
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Refraction
Lens Lab**
Plane Mirrors
Mirrors Lab
Light intensity and inverse square law
Calorimetry Lab
Electrostatics Lab
Series & Parallel Circuits**
Capacitors
Wheatstone bridge lab
Magnetic Field Explorations
Magnetic field in a Slinky**
Transformers
Spectroscopes and energy of photons
Nuclear radiation and shielding**
Half-life
AP Physics Syllabus 6