Integration is not decoration — it is a deliberate method for making each unit reach outward into history, reading, and writing first, then into geography, ethics, data, and economics, so the physics becomes something a student can think with rather than just recall. Memory is associative: a formula lashed to a discovery, a controversy, and a consequence is held by a dozen threads instead of one.
Every unit radiates the same structured set of connections off the science spine — three tiers plus a quantitative lane. This is what keeps the cross-domain work rigorous instead of random.
| Tier | What it carries |
|---|---|
| Core spokes always required | History, Reading, Writing. Every unit names who discovered the idea and what they got wrong first, gives a real text to read (primary source, biography, living book — not a textbook chapter), and asks for writing in the student’s own voice. These run in every unit, no exceptions. |
| Standard spokes where they fit | Geography (where in the world this matters — industry, resources, environment) and soft social studies (the ethical and policy stakes). Where a unit genuinely doesn’t carry these, we move them to the elective pool rather than fake a connection. |
| Elective spokes pick ~two of five | Data & quantitative · Ethics · Economics · Technology & engineering · Art & design. Additive depth, never a substitute for the core. Letting students choose feeds wonder and lets faster students go deeper. |
| Applied-math lane always present | Math is not a spoke — we use math, we are not a math program. Physics leans on math more than most sciences; every unit names the specific math the physics actually requires, done inside the lab context. The per-unit lane is on Page 3. |
Integration is graded as its own strand, separate from the science-mastery criteria. A student can be Mastered on the physics and only Approaching on integration, or the reverse — which keeps the science bar pure while still rewarding cross-domain depth.
Every unit has an anchor built the same way. Each row names the unit’s physical big idea and the real-world anchor that carries the History, Reading, and Writing core — a doorway, not a detour.
| Unit | Physics big idea | Integration anchor |
|---|---|---|
| 01 Kinematics & Motion | Motion is described exactly by displacement, velocity, and acceleration — and read straight off a graph. | Galileo rolling balls down an inclined plane to slow gravity down; pair with excerpts from Two New Sciences — the slope of a distance–time graph is the velocity. |
| 02 Dynamics & Newton’s Laws | A net force changes motion; with no net force, motion never changes at all (inertia). | Newton’s Principia and the three laws of motion — and the free-body diagram becomes the physicist’s core tool. |
| 03 Circular Motion & Gravitation | Turning and orbiting need a center-seeking force; gravity falls off with the square of the distance. | Kepler’s planetary data and Newton uniting the heavens with the falling apple; pair with Longitude — one inverse-square law holds the Moon and drops a stone. |
| 04 Energy & Work | Work transfers energy; energy is never lost, only moved from one form into another. | Joule, Watt, and the age of the steam engine — measuring energy and power; the horsepower that drove the Industrial Revolution. |
| 05 Momentum & Collisions | Momentum is conserved in every collision; impulse is a force acting over time. | Rocketry and the space race, from Tsiolkovsky to Apollo — conservation of momentum is what lifts a rocket off the pad. |
| 06 Simple Harmonic Motion | A restoring force makes a system swing; its period is set by the system, not by how far it swings. | Galileo and Huygens and the pendulum clock — isochronism and the birth of precise timekeeping; the swing that reset how the world told time. |
| 07 Torque & Rotational Motion | Torque turns things; a lever trades force for distance about a pivot point. | Levers from Archimedes’ “give me a place to stand” to the machine age; pair with The Way Things Work — every machine is a handful of these ideas combined. |
| 08 Fluids & Pressure | Pressure pushes in every direction; buoyancy and flow follow simple, predictable laws. | Archimedes in the bath, Pascal on pressure, and Bernoulli on flow — from crowns to hydraulics to the physics of flight. |
Big idea: motion can be measured, not just described — on a ramp, distance grows with the square of the time. Anchor: with no accurate clock, Galileo slowed gravity down by rolling a ball along a gentle incline and timing it by the weight of water from a spout; he found distance to be proportional to time squared. Question: students roll a cart down a track, time it through photogates, and test that square relationship themselves. Connection back: this is kinematics — and the same inclined-plane trick underlies every motion graph they will read for the rest of the year.
Math never drives a unit, but physics uses it constantly — always anchored to the reaction or measurement at the bench. Here is the quantitative skill each unit actually uses, done inside the lab context rather than as a parallel curriculum.
| Unit | Applied math (in the lab context) |
|---|---|
| 01 Kinematics & Motion | Reading slopes and areas off motion graphs; the kinematic equations; significant figures. |
| 02 Dynamics & Newton’s Laws | Resolving vectors into components; summing a net force; dimensional analysis (N = kg·m/s²). |
| 03 Circular Motion & Gravitation | Inverse-square scaling; centripetal force from v²/r; proportional reasoning with Kepler’s third law. |
| 04 Energy & Work | Work as force × distance and the area under a force–distance graph; power as energy over time; unit checks (J, W). |
| 05 Momentum & Collisions | Vector momentum bookkeeping; impulse as the area under a force–time graph; conservation arithmetic. |
| 06 Simple Harmonic Motion | Square-root relationships (T ∝ √(L/g)); period and frequency as reciprocals; reading amplitude off a graph. |
| 07 Torque & Rotational Motion | Torque as force × lever arm; balancing moments about a pivot; ratio reasoning for mechanical advantage. |
| 08 Fluids & Pressure | Pressure as force ÷ area; density as mass ÷ volume; proportional reasoning for buoyant force. |
Students read the slope off their own motion graph, resolve the force vector inside the inclined-plane lab, and work the pendulum’s period at the bench. The number always means something because it is attached to a result they produced — never a worksheet detached from the physics.
Integration is its own strand. Track each unit’s integration level across the year — Not Yet, Approaching, or Mastered — separate from the science-mastery rubric. Record demonstration tokens earned in the final column.
| Unit | Not Yet | Approaching | Mastered | Tokens |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 Kinematics & Motion | ◯ | ◯ | ◯ | ______ |
| 02 Dynamics & Laws | ◯ | ◯ | ◯ | ______ |
| 03 Circular & Gravitation | ◯ | ◯ | ◯ | ______ |
| 04 Energy & Work | ◯ | ◯ | ◯ | ______ |
| 05 Momentum & Collisions | ◯ | ◯ | ◯ | ______ |
| 06 Simple Harmonic Motion | ◯ | ◯ | ◯ | ______ |
| 07 Torque & Rotation | ◯ | ◯ | ◯ | ______ |
| 08 Fluids & Pressure | ◯ | ◯ | ◯ | ______ |
A student who walks through all eight anchors finishes understanding that physics is how humans learned to measure and predict the moving world, and that every formula on the page was once a discovery someone fought for — the version of the subject a student keeps.