Okay . . .  I’ve thought about this for awhile.  The purpose of this project is to INTRODUCE you to the amazing world of ElectroMagnetics. These abstract ideas need to be watered  in small daily doses or I am afraid they just won’t take root and grow.

My job is to set the table and your job is to nibble nibble nibble until you’re full for the day. That may take 30 minutes one day and up to 2 hours on another day.

Okay . . . enough with the food metaphors.  Guess I’m hungry.

Here’s what I need from you to help insure that these ideas take hold in your brain this year. The daily problem solving is great, but you need to also summarize the new concepts in a chapter and show how they fit into the concepts you have learned this year and the previous two years of Physics.  For example: the comparison of Coulomb’s Law to Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation or . . .  how electric flux is a dot (scalar) product, not a cross (vector) product.

So . . .  any new equation given in a chapter needs to be picked apart, diagnosed, seen in it’s historical context and ultimately written down in your notebook.  You know . . . Where did it come from? What is it used for? practical applications? any new mathematical symbols? You need to include a derivation from fundamental principals, how is it useful (practical applications) ? A little dimensional analysis?  Who first formulated it? This may require Wikipedia as long as you trust the sources. I’ve found that Wikipedia is pretty trustworthy with these classical Physics concepts.  Well vetted.  Be generous with your labeled drawings.  Share information with each other and me of course.  We’re all in this together.

For this 2016-2017 season, I am adding more formal requirements for the notebooks.  Since I am not going to be able to work with you much during the day, I have provided a tremendous amount of help by the best professors and teachers in the world through their help videos, lectures, and sample problems. There are close to 100 help videos and you are going to help me get that up to 150 for next year.   I watch them before I add them to the website to make sure that they are not wasting your time. You will be required to watch at least four of these help videos per chapter. You will have to write at least 150 words in your notebook per help video.

So your grade will be based on your notebook (27%), assigned homework (27%), and tests (46%).

What the notebook chapters need to look like:

• Each section of each chapter has to be outlined and the main equations and ideas written down. (60pts)
• minimum 120 words (with drawings) on each of the four help videos (10 pts each x 4 = 40pts)
• Chapter problems taped in and worked out. (6pts per problem x 20 problems = 120pts.
• Your corrected 200pt chapter tests will be taped in at the end of each chapter.

WARNING!! Any E&M student not maintaining at least 75% of these points at the end of the first semester can not enroll in AP Physics (E&M) second semester. 

This group of the best and brightest in Physics at NHS has to keep up with the schedule if you want a real shot at passing the AP Physics (E&M) exam in May.