News — pacing guide

If you are a new physics teacher—or an experienced teacher transitioning to the Next Generation Science Standards—you know the overwhelming feeling of staring at a blank calendar in August. Building a comprehensive high school physics curriculum from scratch is a monumental task. You have to balance rigorous mathematical problem-solving with conceptual understanding, ensure alignment with NGSS performance expectations, and somehow find time to prep engaging, hands-on labs that your students will actually remember. Many teachers find themselves piecing together a curriculum late at night, pulling a worksheet from one site, a lab from another, and trying to make a cohesive...

If you're staring down the barrel of a new school year—or perhaps just a new semester—and wondering how you're going to get your students to care about kinematics, forces, and circuits, you are not alone. Teaching high school physics is a unique challenge. You aren't just teaching facts; you're teaching a completely new way of looking at the universe, wrapped in a layer of math that many students find intimidating. But here is the good news: when physics clicks for a student, it is magic. The moment they realize that the same equations governing a falling apple also govern the...