Overview | Standards and Benchmarks | Description of Chapters | Common Themes | Sample Activities 

Content Overview

The PET curriculum consists of six units of activities that cover introductory physics. The course is hierarchical, with both topics and skills developed in a structured progression around some powerful common themes. A number of homeworks and activities are specifically designed to meet the curriculum's Learning about Learning content goals. 

• Chapter 1: Interactions and Energy introduces students to all of the common themes of the course, in particular the themes of interactions between objects and the energy description of interactions. 
   
• Chapter 2: Interactions and Forces introduces students to an alternative framework (that of forces) within which they can explain interactions they first see in Chapter 1 that involve objects pushing or pulling on one another.
   
• Chapter 3: Interactions and Fields introduces students to the ideas of "fields of influence" mediating interactions that can occur over a distance, specifically the magnetic, electric charge and gravitational interactions. The concept of potential energy is also introduced.
   
• Chapter 4: Model of Magnetism concentrates on the nature of science as students develop a model for magnetism, and then track its evolution among elementary students and historically, among scientists.
   
• Chapter 5: Electric Circuit Interactions introduces students to electric circuit interactions and how to describe electric circuits in terms of energy and current.
   
• Chapter 6: Light Interactions introduces students to light interactions. Students examine the interaction of light with mirrors, eyes, transparent objects, white and black objects, and objects of different colors.

For the full list of activities and homeworks in PET, see the Table of Contents (PDF).