Group Reports from Breakout Session A1

 

These are the un-edited presentations of each of the breakout groups.

 

Blue Group:

  • Physics is the fundamental science on which all science is based.
  • Ability to understand our world
  • Develops critical thinking and problem solving skills
  • May be most effective way to teach children our world is not mysterious
  • Physics uses testable models and solvable systems
  • Intellectual improvement at an early age
  • Math skills are useful in quantifying our world
  • Helps build self-image
  • Physics is not a set of topics; it’s a way to approach/understand the world

 

Brown Group:

 

  • From the outset it has to be made clear that when we speak of physics in the K-12 curriculum with university faculty, administrators, principals, and superintendents that we are not talking about frontier physics, mathematical physics, or even, for the most part, physics with mathematics.  We are talking about physics as the study of anything and everything that impinges on our senses or our senses extended with instruments.  We are talking of basic physics, the foundation of all the sciences.  It is simple.  It is kinesthetic.  It is fun.  K-2 teachers interacting with their students on the floor of a classroom is most illustrative of this approach.  Teachers in grades 3-12 should do likewise.  How the world works can be investigated by learning how to observe, how to measure, how to report findings, how to evaluate evidence, how to explain what you have done and discovered, and then to recognize that it is a never-ending process that leads us to revise and improve our investigations.  All of this leads to improved reading and writing, critical thinking, and general problem solving skills that come about in the effort to understand and explain.  The history of this physics and its associated technological innovations’ effect on society permeates all that we need to do in the schools.  Therefore, to not include physics integrated throughout the K-12 curriculum is to cheat them of a full education.

 

Purple Group:

 

  • State standards
  • Increase performance in other analytical areas
  • Basis for other sciences

-inquiry mind set

-problem solving skills

-critical thinking

-promotes equity

-life long learning

  • Physics education research is better developed (HS, college)
  • Science literacy

 

Green Group:

 

  • Preparation for living and working in a world increasingly reliant on technology
  • Provide understanding for “complete” education and integration of other science knowledge

-develop reasoning skills

-develop powers of observation

-context for learning math

-accessible to all learning styles

-matches and enhances student’s developmental skills and capacities

-most conducive science for teaching by inquiry and modeling scientific   

  method

 

Pink Group:

 

  • Physics emphasizes logic, reasoning, and critical thinking skills that other sciences do not
  • Physics deals with the real world – Life IS a word problem. 

 

The importance of physics has already been recognized by the Texas legislature, which has passed the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) learning objectives.  These include, at the fifth grade level, topics such as energy, forces and motion, heat, electricity, sound and light.  At the tenth grade level, topics include motion, forces, energy, circuits, and the nature of science and processes.

 

Science is common sense, refined, and students should learn how to use their natural curiosity and apply it to learn new facts and relationships between facts and new understandings.  Of the sciences, physics is the one that is most refined and which, in its applications, most distinguishes the technologically advanced from the technologically primitive societies. 

 

Red Group:

 

  • page one:

                                    TAKS

 

1.  Physical Science    Þ  tested

 

2.  Integration K-12 Þ scoresÝ

 

  • page two:

                                    TAX BASE

Facts:

            1.  Texas  ---   2nd largest

                 high technology workforce

            2.  fastest growing

            3.  shortage of trained workers

            4.  make almost twice av. private Texas wage

 

school      Þ       job     Þ       taxes

    ­                                              ¯

                 ¬ ¬ ¬ ¬            ¬¬¬            ¬¬¬            ¬  

 

Snowman Group:

 

  • Science is one component of a broad-based education
  • Science is the basis for technology
  • Physics is the basis for all other sciences
  • Science literacy is

            a) necessary to be a well-informed citizen

            b) necessary for making decisions

            c) [necessary] for being a quality conscious consumer

            d) [necessary] for distinguishing science fact from pseudo science

  • Physics is something a child has done since day 1.  Learning to focus, colors, balance
  • Children have a natural curiosity and need for understanding the physical world.