P2 Pacing Guide

Marc Reif

Instruction begins on Monday, 14 August 2017. Our school is on A/B block. Each class meets five 90-minute sessions every two weeks. We have 80 blocks before the AP Exam. that is 7200 minutes or 120 hours or 5 complete days.

There are 40 blocks in the first semester and 40 blocks in the second semester before the AP 1 and 2 Exams. Some units, as noted, do not include tests.

I estimate 75 days (allowing a few days for interruptions due to state testing) of instruction before the AP 2 Exam on Wednesday, 9 May 2018. 

~~~~~1111111~~~~Begin Semester 1~~~~~~1111111~~~~~~~

Unit 1 - Electric Charge, Electric Force, Electric Potential Energy 

    [6 blocks (incl. test date) - 34 remaining in the 1st semester - test on 8/30 or 8/31]

    Etkina Text Chapter 14

    Labs: sticky tape lab; Coulomb's Law lab; Devices (electrophorus, electroscope, etc.)

Unit 2 - Electric Field and Electric Potential Fields 

    [5 blocks (incl. test date) - 29 remaining - test on 9/14 or 9/15]

    Etkina Text Chapter 15

    Labs: Potential plot on Pasco conductive paper OR electrified objects in a pan of water

Unit 3 - DC Circuits with Capacitors 

    [6 blocks (incl. test date) - 23 remaining - test on 10/2 or 10/3]

    Etkina Text Chapter 16

    Labs:  Parallel Plate Capacitor; Circuit Puzzles and Kirchhoff's Laws; RC Circuit

Unit 4 - Magnetism and Induction 

    [6  blocks (incl. test date) - 17 remaining - test on 10/16 or 10/17]

    Etkina Text Chapters 17 and 18

   Labs: B-field of permanent magnets; B-field of a current-carrying wire; B-field of a slinky

Unit 5 - Fluids 

    [6 blocks (incl. test date) - 11 remaining - test on 11/2 or 11/3]

    Etkina Text Chapters 10 and 11

   Lab for fluid statics: soup can suspended from a force sensor, lowered into beaker of water resting on a scale. Another version.

   Lab for fluid dynamics: PhET simulation "Fluid Flow"

Unit 6 - Thermodynamics 

    [7 blocks  (incl. test date) - 4 remaining - Test on 11/30 or 12/1, week after Thanks. break]

    Etkina Text Chapters 12 and 13

   Lab: Boyle's Law; PhET Gas properties simulation

This is probably a little too fast-paced- leaves almost 1 full week before Semester 1 Finals. That has never happened for me before. 

222222222222--Begin Semester 2--22222222222

Unit 7 - Geometric Optics 

    [6 blocks (incl. test date) - 34 remaining - test on 1/22 or 1/23]  

    Etkina Text Chapters 21 and 22

    Labs: reflection; refraction; mirrors and lenses

Unit 8 - Physical Optics 

    [6 blocks - 28 remaining - test on 2/8 or 2/9]

    Etkina Text Chapters 22 and 23

    Lab: single slit; double slit/double source experiment 

Unit 9 - Quantum Interactions (and Relativity in brief) 

    [7 blocks (incl. test date) - 21  remaining - test on 3/1 or 3/2 ]

    Etkina Text Chapters 26 and 27

   Labs: various PhET Simulations

Unit 10 - Nuclear and Particle Physics 

    [8 blocks (incl. test date) - 13 remaining - test on 4/2 or 4/3]

    Etkina Text Chapters 28 and 29

    Lab: Radioactive Decay

Review [13 days remaining - Mock Exam by 5/1 or 5/2]

AP 2 Exam on Wednesday, 9 May 2018. 

Probably will not actually be able to maintain the actual test dates, particularly in the second semester (for instance it doesn't include interruptions due to state testing), but I hope to be just a few days off on my estimates.