I shared my pacing in AP Physics 1 last May, based off of my 2015-2016 school year plans. I made this guide after two years of teaching AP Physics 1, and needless to say, it’s changed quite a bit. 

Though it hasn’t changed drastically, I took a good look back at it this summer and tried to find areas in need of improvement. Here is my basic order of instruction:

  • Physics Skills 
  • Kinematics in 1D
  • Forces in 1D
  • Forces and Motion in 2D
  • Momentum
  • Energy
  • Rotation
  • Waves
  • Electricity

I am going to focus on semester one, and reflect on semester two in a couple of weeks as I plan for the coming months. Here is my revised AP Physics 1 pacing for the first semester!

Unit 1: Physics Skills – 6 days

I still begin my year with Physics Skills, which includes some introductory mathematics, graphing skills, and laboratory skills. However, I begin basic motion definitions and introduce motion graphs during this unit. These additions make Physics Skills bleed more seamlessly into Kinematics.

Proportional reasoning is an essential skill to focus on early in the year.

Unit 2: Kinematics in One Dimension – 15 days

This includes constant velocity motion and uniformly accelerated motion in one dimension. I begin kinematics earlier than I used to, and try to infuse some of the graphical analysis skills and laboratory skills necessary for AP Physics 1 during this unit. I also specifically focus on the Qualitative/Quantitative translation FRQs as our first type of FRQ.

Unit 3: Forces – 15 days

In this unit, we focus on types of forces and basic usage of Newton’s Laws. This was a major change for me – moved forces up to before 2D kinematics (projectiles, motion on inclined planes). This gives students more of a conceptual basis of forces before we get into more complex problems. I also introduce vectors and vector operations at the end here as a precursor to 2D motion. I specifically focus on the experimental design FRQs.

2017 FRQ #2 is a great experimental design question to use in this unit. 

This new layout for the first quarter gives me on average 4 full days for review and/or a full multiple choice + FRQ mini AP test.

Unit 4: Forces and Motion in 2D – 15 days

Two dimensions is a dense unit, and possibly somewhere that I need improving. I include 2D forces, projectiles, circular motion, and gravitation. My circular motion treatment is a little light, as I know we will get back to it in the rotation unit. Holding off with projectiles until after the first quarter lessens their scariness and gives them a better explanation once we understand forces. I also specifically focus on the experimental design FRQs.

Unit 5: Momentum – 10 days

This is another big change for me – momentum before energy. When I did energy here, we would usually not finish or rush to finish before Thanksgiving Break, and then somehow forget energy existed afterwards. I moved momentum up, knowing that if I took out in-depth collision analysis and moved that to the energy unit, we could easily finish momentum before break. I also like that this is heavy on the vectors, which we are jumping off from in forces. This unit includes impulse, momentum, conservation of momentum, and a basic knowledge of collisions. We also focus on short answer FRQs, especially the paragraph length response.

A sample collision lab using PhET simulations
The Collisions Lab from PhET is a great way to introduce collisions and conservation of momentum!

Unit 6: Energy – 15 days

Finally, we are closing out the first semester. We round out semester one with energy transfer, conservation of energy, and energy in collisions. This switch lets us take energy into the home stretch, and use it as a good spiral of every topic already covered. 

AP Physics 1 Pacing – tl;dr version

I changed my order to do kinematics and forces in 1D before doing both in 2D. I did momentum before energy. I liked it, would recommend.