This is my first year teaching a 10th grade Integrated Science course that will prepare students for the IB Diploma Program science courses. As the physics teacher I was tasked with developing a unit relating to physics that would fit in with the NGSS. The standard I chose to address is as follows;
“Evaluate the claims, evidence, and reasoning behind the idea that electromagnetic radiation can be described either by a wave model or a particle model, and that for some situations one model is more useful than the other.”
I was pretty excited when I read this standard because it’s not often that I can incorporate ideas related to quantum physics in the 10th grade classroom. We had already completed a number of tests this semester and I wanted to try something different for the assessment in this unit.
When I was in high school one of the most memorable physics assessments we had was a debate about the nature of light and I thought that this would fit perfectly with the standard described above. With the learning coach, Alexis, we set out to develop instructions and a rubric used to score the debate. The following document is what was shared with the students.
In the end, I was impressed with the effort that the majority of students put into this task and the level of research they did in order to prove their point. Most students by the end of the debate realized that the two models can be used to describe light and this was highlighted in the reflections.
I will definitely run this activity again.
The Physics Boss 