On the links below, you will find labs, handouts, old tests and sometimes notes. It's basically the result of 30 years of curriculum building, and was one of the parts of teaching that I loved. I am posting all this material for a few reasons, but mostly I hope someone finds it useful. Maybe a new teacher can get some ideas or things to use. Maybe a student just needs some extra help with something or is trying to self-study some physics.

We used to make packets for each topic to give the kids, but the last couple years I only handed things out via Google Classroom - either as a PDF or a Googledoc. I am starting with the handouts for the AP class and will add things as time and motivation permits.

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Physics at ABRHS was generally a senior class, and we taught it at three different levels based on the math used in the class. The names of the levels have changed multiple times, but what was taught stayed the same - apart from the normal evolution of the curriculum. Our breakdown was calculus-based, trigonometry-based and algebra-based. I always taught the calculus-based class, and also taught the algebra-based class for the last half of my career.

AP Physics (calculus)

The text used was Resnick, Halliday and Walker's Fundamentals of Physics and covered the material for the AP Physics C: Mechanics exam. Because we had enough old Conceptual Physics by Hewitt, I handed that out as well. I think the two books really complement each other. I also had an astronomy unit, which I love but is not on the AP exam, that I did right before the Universal Gravitation unit. After the AP exams were finished, we always had a few weeks of school still, so we did a unit on Special Relativity to close out the year. We also used to do some basic electrostatics and circuits - but a schedule change in 2019 resulted in the class losing some classtime, so we do not have time for that anymore.

Physics (algebra)

The text used was Hewitt's Conceptual Physics, though by the end, we only handed out the books if a student wanted it. We covered the basic mechanics material, but did not do rotational mechanics or oscillations. Problem solving was more straight forward algebra, and with projectile motion we did use sines and cosines to find the horizontal and vertical components. We used to have a double period lab with the class, but a school wide schedule change in 2019 resulted in losing that, and so we lost about 1/3 of our classtime over the year. Before that, the second half of the year we did electrostatics, circuits, magnetism, and perhaps waves, sound or some optics.

Feel free to use any of this for personal or class use. The only thing I do not give permission for is selling any of this.


page last updated 6/21/23 by david mcclung, copyright 2023, all rights reserved.