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Bright Minds. Physics Physics course pack
Scope & sequence

The course map.

Eight units — four per semester — the labs that anchor them, and the two-day rhythm that runs every week of the year. This is the planner’s view — the whole course on one page.

The weekly engine

Two days a week, and the work between them.

Every unit runs on the same rhythm: Concept Day → [student works at home] → Experiment Day → [student synthesizes at home] → next Concept Day. One day forces a choice between depth and breadth; two days allow both. More than two crowds out the at-home work where integration actually happens.

The weekly two-day rhythm A repeating loop: Concept Day, then at-home work, then Experiment Day, then at-home synthesis, returning to the next Concept Day. Concept Day discuss · instruct · apply Experiment Day predict · run · record At home read & prepare At home synthesize & reflect
The solid path is the school week; the dashed return is the at-home synthesis that carries one week into the next.
Day one · ~2 hours

Concept Day

  1. Arrival & warm-up — reconnect with the prior session
  2. Pre-lecture discussion — surface what the at-home reading raised
  3. Direct instruction — micro-lectures, worked problems, demonstrations
  4. Problem set / model work — apply the concept, solo or in pairs
  5. Misconception sweep & wrap-up — correct common errors, preview the lab

Guide's role: Socratic and diagnostic. Student's role: active participation; pre-reading required.

Day two · ~2 hours

Experiment Day

  1. Pre-lab briefing — the question, the procedure, the safety
  2. Safety check — goggles, secured masses, clear runways; explicit, every time
  3. Setup — track, timers, apparatus, partner assignment
  4. Execution — the lab itself; the guide circulates and coaches
  5. Debrief & lab notebook — completed before the student leaves
  6. Teardown & reset — apparatus returned to standard; non-negotiable

Guide's role: safety officer first, teacher second. Student's role: the lab notebook is THE artifact — predictions before results.

The concept spine

From how things move to how forces flow.

The sequence is deliberate: each unit assumes the one before it. Click any unit to open its mastery rubric — the standard a student demonstrates against to advance.

The eight-unit concept spine Eight units build in order from Kinematics through Dynamics, Circular Motion and Gravitation, Energy, Momentum, Simple Harmonic Motion, Torque and Rotational Motion, and Fluids. 01Kinematics 02Dynamics 03Circ. Motion 04Energy 05Momentum 06SHM 07Rotation 08Fluids
Each unit assumes the one before it — how things move first, forces in fluids last.
Unit Big ideas Anchor lab(s) Integrates with
01 · Kinematics Position, velocity, acceleration, motion graphs, free fall Motion on a track (photogates); video analysis of free fall Galileo’s inclined planes & the birth of the science of motion (history, reading); applied math: slopes & areas of motion graphs
02 · Dynamics & Newton’s Laws Forces, Newton’s three laws, friction, free-body diagrams Force table; Atwood machine; friction on an incline Newton’s Principia & the clockwork universe (history, reading); vectors & simultaneous equations
03 · Circular Motion & Gravitation Centripetal force, orbits, universal gravitation Conical pendulum; centripetal-force apparatus Kepler, Newton & the heavens (history, geography); ratios & inverse-square reasoning
04 · Energy & Work Work, kinetic & potential energy, conservation, power Energy on a ramp; spring potential energy; pendulum energy Joule, Watt & the age of the engine (history, economics); areas under curves & algebra
05 · Momentum & Collisions Impulse, conservation of momentum, elastic & inelastic collisions Collision carts (elastic & inelastic); impulse on a track Rocketry & the space race (history, geography); vector sums & algebra
06 · Simple Harmonic Motion Oscillations, springs, pendulums, period & frequency Mass–spring period; simple-pendulum period study Galileo, Huygens & the pendulum clock (history, technology); square-root relationships & graphing
07 · Torque & Rotational Motion Torque, rotational inertia, angular momentum, equilibrium Meter-stick balance; rotational-inertia study Levers from Archimedes to the machine age (history); moments & proportional reasoning
08 · Fluids & Pressure Density, pressure, buoyancy, Archimedes’ principle, continuity Buoyancy & Archimedes’ principle; flow & pressure Archimedes, Pascal & Bernoulli (history, reading); density & pressure math

Every unit carries the core spokes — History, Reading, and Writing — anchored to the story in the integration guide. The column above names each unit’s distinctive spokes; geography and soft social studies run where they fit, and students pick from elective spokes (data, ethics, economics, technology, art). An applied-math lane runs through every unit too — math used in service of the physics, never as a separate program.

The three demonstrations

Where mastery gets proven in person.

Three times across the year, the student steps up to a demonstration that cannot be faked, outsourced, or generated. These are the AI-proof core of the course — understanding, shown in real time, against a rubric, in front of a guide.

After Unit 02–04

Apparatus build-and-defense

Design and build a working apparatus to measure a quantity — then defend the design, the data, and the sources of error, out loud, under questions.
After Unit 05

Timed prediction-and-test

From measurements, predict where a projectile lands or how a collision resolves — then run it live, under time pressure, and account for the difference.
End of each unit

Oral lab-notebook defense

Walk a guide through your own notebook: the question, the method, the data, the anomalies, the interpretation.
A note on pacing. The eight units split evenly across the two semesters — four units per semester, roughly four weeks each. That fills the school year’s ~36 instructional weeks: about 32 weeks of units, with the three demonstrations slotted at the natural seams and a short review-and-buffer window in each semester. Mastery-based progression means the calendar bends to the student, not the other way around — a unit is done when it is demonstrated, and the multi-section scheduling guide shows guides how to hold a cohort together when students master at different rates.