A. P. Physics ---Stonington High School ---Mr. Parkinson

Course Overview:

------- AP Physics B is a college level course that uses Algebra and Geometry as the primary tool for problem solving. Students can obtain college credit, at many colleges or universities, by scoring a 4 or 5 on the AP examination offered by the College Board in May of each year. After the AP Exam in May, a project is due in June to complete the course.

------- AP Physics B is a non-calculus based physics course that covers topics in mechanics, energy, wave motion, electricity, magnetism, thermodynamics, optics, quantum theory, and nuclear physics. The percentage of the exam corresponding to each of these topics is included in the Advanced Placement Course Description in Physics published yearly by the College Board. These and many other helpful publications and information can be found on the AP Central Web site at the URL http://apcentral.collegeboard.com and navigating through the AP Physics information.

------- It can be overwhelming to look at all the topics to be covered however, AP Physics B is intended to be a second-year course, meaning that the students have already had a year of introductory physics. It is very important to maintain a tight schedule to cover all the topics. This may mean moving on to the next topic even when some students haven’t mastered the current one. Generally, under pressure the students eventually do catch on and catch up.

------- If the students have already had a year of introductory physics, they have probably done all the typical first-year labs. There is less time in AP Physics to do labs, since so much time is spent on conceptual development and problem solving. Students still need to be able to take data, with or without high-tech probes and software, organize the data, analyze the data and sources of error, draw conclusions, and explore ways to improve or extend the experiment. Given the equipment they have available to them and what they need to measure; student’s will be expected to design the procedures of the labs themselves. Advanced students generally enjoy the freedom to be creative in the lab. Many of the usual first-year introductory physics labs can be refitted for an AP class by extending them and letting the students decide how the measurements will be made. In addition to problems on the AP Exams, there are also lab-based questions that ask the students to design and analyze a procedure to measure something. Examples of these lab-based questions as well as the last five years' free-response problems can be found on the College Board Web site mentioned above. Currently, a College Board publication is being developed that discusses the types of labs that have been proven helpful to the students' understanding of physics and success on the AP Physics Exams.

------- Students should expect to spend 2-4 hours per week outside of class on physics related assignments. You will need a scientific calculator and a lab notebook. Access to a computer is required for word processing, spreadsheeting, and graphing.
 
------- AP Physics is an intense course and is purposely designed to extract your best reasoning skills. Consequently, it is not unusual for students to occasionally become frustrated with laboratory work, problem solving, and tests. For this reason, there are several fundamental expectations that will allow you to reach your personal goals in this course. Firstly, students are expected to attend all classes. Absences related to legitimate reasons are unavoidable, however, success in this class (and others) is enhanced by consistent attendance, and it is the students responsibility to obtain the information and assignment for the day missed. Secondly, problems assigned in class are valuable for understanding the material. It is expected that all assignments be completed on time to the best of your ability as a requisite to continuing in the class. Generally students, who fall behind in their work, loose ground so rapidly that it may become impossible to continue in the course .  You can best reach your goals in this course through daily preparation. There is no substitute for hard work, especially in a course such as AP Physics that requires a collection of skills (i.e., writing, mathematics, reasoning, etc.) to succeed. You should expect to work much harder in this course than what you are accustomed to in high school courses, but the rewards will be worth it all.

 
------- A summer assignment to review basic Physics concepts was given before the end of school this year, and will be due upon your return in August. (View Summer Assignment)