The canonical physics curriculum

Identifying the core understandings and skills

If the canon exists to encompass the enduring and necessary components of physics knowledge, then what are the core components and whatare just the typical but unnecessary trappings adorning them?

With one group of students, I discussed measuring wind speed with a cup anemometer. That involved an approach to average speed, displacement, and time that looked different than the typical moving point in traditional kinematics, but thecore relationship was the same. Was something missing? Is the traditional apparatus optimal, or even a necessary part of understanding. Or, is the traditional apparatus a hindrance to wider possibilities of the essential concept?

The most unchanged canon

Is physics curriculum the most unchanged of all high school or college curricula, measured over the past century? A study of physics textbooks over the years might help to answer that question.