Honors Physical Science with Virtual Labs and Sims

Table of Contents

COURSE OBJECTIVE

This comprehensive course covers essential physical science concepts, such as organic chemistry, atmospheric science, rock types, chemical bonding and stoichiometry.

Students will spend a minimum of 50% of virtual in-person instructional time engaged in inquiry-based hands-on virtual lab explorations, interactives, and simulations during which they will make observations and predictions, design experiments, analyze data, define relationships between physical qualities, and support claims with evidence in a collaborative setting.

COURSE FORMAT

The class meets 90 minutes twice a week (M/W or T/Th) for 20 weeks.  Like all other courses in our curriculum,Honors Physical Science with Virtual Labs and Sims consists of two components: asynchronous and synchronous learning.

1. We use the Physical Science: High School course for the asynchronous flipped classroom portion of the course. This makes up 50% of your overall grade.

2. Your academy instructor will facilitate the virtual in-person synchronous portion of the course. This makes up 50% of your overall grade.

Asynchronous Learning

Physical Science: High School course on Study.com was created by a panel of expert instructors who break down concepts with bite-sized, animated video lessons organized into topical chapters that improve comprehension and retention, making learning fun and engaging.  Each video is approximately 5-10 minutes long and comes with a quick quiz to help you measure your "first exposure learning" during the pre-work phase before the actual class. At the end of each chapter, you will complete a chapter test to see if you're ready to move on or have some material to review.

You should expect to spend 50-70 minutes per week on these homework assignments. The academy intentionally schedules no classes on Fridays to provide dedicated time for homework assignments and out-of-class projects.

Synchronous Learning

Our academy instructor, who will also serve as your Gamemaster, will facilitate the live, virtual classroom sessions, which will supplement and build upon the Physical Science: High School course. These sessions will incorporate engaging game-based activities to solidify your understanding of geological concepts. Additionally, they will answer any questions you may have about the asynchronous material.

We will utilize the CK-12 Physical Science Essentials - FlexBook 2.0 Textbook, an online interactive resource with videos, PLIX, simulations, adaptive practice problems, and Flexi 2.0 (a powerful AI tutor). This FlexBook is aligned with national standards like CSS, NGSS, and TEKS, and more.

Our in-person sessions are designed to make learning fun and interactive! Here's what you can expect:

• Interactive discussions:  We will delve deeper into key concepts from the asynchronous material and address any common misconceptions.

• Team-based activities:   You'll work collaboratively with your fellow students to earn points and badges, and climb the leaderboard as you embark on scientific edventures!

• Labs and Simulations:  We will conduct virtual labs and simulations to provide hands-on experience with key physical science phenomena, like gravity, electromagnetism, motion, fluids, matter, thermodynamics, astronomy and more!

• PLIX: Play, Learn, Interact, and eXplore offer students an interactive and immersive experience exploring physical science concepts by allowing them to adjust variables and observe the effects, facilitating a deeper understanding of the content.

• Adaptive Practice Problem Sets:  Sharpen your skills with challenging questions that adjust their difficulty, offering real-time feedback, AI support, and progress tracking for mastery.

Exams

During both the Fall and Spring semesters, there will be a comprehensive mid-term exam over all content covered during the first quarter and a comprehensive final exam over all content covered during the second quarter of the semester. Each of these four exams is weighted equally.

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COURSE TOPICS

Chapters: 15; Lessons: 216

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INTERACTIVE DISCUSSION BOARD

Each chapter features an interactive discussion board powered by Discussion Hero, a gamified platform developed by Northwestern University. Students choose between "hero" and "villain" roles and avatars, earning points for their contributions. This fosters a sense of competition and engagement, making discussions even more rewarding.

Benefits of Participating in Discussions:

1. Develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills:  Go beyond memorization and passive learning by analyzing information, evaluating different perspectives, and forming your own conclusions.

2. Enhance communication skills:  Practice clear communication, learn to articulate your ideas effectively, and develop respectful listening and rebuttal skills.

3. Fosters a collaborative learning environment:  Learn from each other, share knowledge, and collaborate on problem-solving, creating a dynamic and enriching learning community.

4. Deepen your understanding of the content:  Actively engaging with the course material through discussion solidifies and expands your understanding beyond lectures and readings.

5. Provides diverse perspectives:  Discussions expose you to different viewpoints and interpretations, encouraging critical thinking and broadening your understanding of the subject matter.

6. Offers opportunities for self-reflection:  Examining your own thoughts and arguments in response to prompts and engaging with others' perspectives helps solidify your learning and identify areas for further exploration.

7. Apply knowledge to real-world scenarios:  Apply course concepts to real-world situations through discussions, enhancing the material's relevance.

8. Build a digital learning portfolio:  Discussions serve as a reference for your learning journey, allowing you to revisit key concepts and track your progress.

9. Develop digital literacy:  Discussions provide a platform to practice online communication etiquette, including respectful disagreement, constructive argumentation, and responsible information sharing.

To actively engage in meaningful learning and reap the benefits mentioned above, participation in each chapter's discussion board is expected and will contribute to your overall grade. Your instructor will provide a clear rubric within Discussion Hero outlining the expectations for participation and how your contributions will be evaluated. This ensures consistent and transparent assessment while allowing you to showcase your understanding and critical thinking skills throughout the course.

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VIRTUAL LABS

Lab Sessions: 12 to 14 each semester.

The lab component is meant to test the application of the skills and knowledge you learned within the lessons. Our lab component is conducted through our online provider, Labster.

Learn about matter and its motion and behavior through space and time in our physics lab simulations. Study the most fundamental measurable quantities in the universe, and find relationships between them to explain and predict their behavior.

Learn about the elements that make up our universe in our chemistry simulations for Non-majors. Discover how atoms interact via chemical bonds to form compounds. Study the structure of atoms and molecules and discover different techniques in the chemistry lab.​

Learn about our home planet, its lands, water, and atmosphere. Discover the interrelationships that exist between living organisms and the components and processes in an environment. Understand the impact people and our activities have on the planet.

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FORTNITE VIRTUAL LABORATORY

Calling all physics enthusiasts and gamers! This course incorporates Fortnite Creative, a 3D sandbox environment within Fortnite where you can design your own game experiences. It serves as a virtual learning lab, allowing you to design and conduct experiments to explore real-world physics concepts in a fun and engaging way.

Benefits of Fortnite Creative Labs:

• Apply Physics in Action:  Experiment with physics concepts in a virtual world, solidifying your grasp of theoretical principles.

• Hands-on Learning:  Design and conduct experiments, actively engaging with the scientific process.

• Data Analysis Skills:  Collect and interpret data from your experiments, honing critical analysis skills.

• Collaboration:  Work with classmates to design, build, and analyze your virtual experiments, fostering teamwork and problem-solving.

Throughout the course, you'll participate in a series of Fortnite Creative Labs focused on specific physics principles:

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INTERACTIVE SIMULATIONS AND PLIX

Honors Physical Science with Virtual Labs and Sims takes physical science exploration to a whole new level with cutting-edge interactive simulations! Built upon real-world scenarios, not just lab models, these simulations bring physical science concepts to life. Interactive sliders and responsive graphs allow you to manipulate variables and observe the effects in real time, fostering a deeper understanding of the physical world.

Aligned with Next Gen Science Standards (NGSS), these simulations empower you to actively engage with the material and solidify your grasp of key physical science principles. PLIX (Play, Learn, Interact, and eXplore) further enhances your learning by providing an interactive environment to explore concepts, test your knowledge, and discuss ideas with your peers.

During this course, you'll delve into a wide range of physical science phenomena through dozens of these interactive simulations and PLIX experiences.

Key Concepts Explored Include:

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ADAPTIVE PRACTICE PROBLEM SETS

Honors Physical Science with Labs and Sims incorporates cutting-edge CK-12 Adaptive Practice to take your learning to a whole new level.  This innovative system utilizes machine learning to create a personalized learning experience that adapts to your individual needs. 

Here's how CK-12 Adaptive Practice empowers you:

• Targeted Practice:  In addition to CK-12's vast library of practice questions ensuring the practice problems directly reinforce what you're learning in class.

• Adaptive Difficulty:  As you answer questions, the system adjusts the difficulty level, offering more challenging problems as you progress and providing support with easier questions when needed.

• Diverse Question Formats:  Expert-crafted questions, including multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, short answer, and drag-and-drop, solidify your grasp of physical science concepts.

• Personalized Guidance:  Your built-in AI tutor, Flexi 2.0, offers hints, identifies knowledge gaps, and recommends resources like videos or targeted reading to solidify your understanding.

• Real-time Progress Tracking: Monitor your progress through a user-friendly dashboard that visually displays your skill level in various areas (Beginning, Exploring, Developing, Proficient, Mastery).

• Detailed Practice Summary:  After completing practice sets, review a detailed summary that includes the time spent, streak (number of correct answers in a row), and the difficulty level of the questions answered.

• Avoid Guesswork:  The system detects random guessing and provides resources like videos or text passages to help you learn and understand the concepts.

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PEER-REVIEW CAPSTONE PROJECT

You’ve grasped an important and challenging scientific theory, concept or principle.  Now it’s time to share your insight into this big breakthrough idea.  In this project, you'll transform your scientific knowledge into an engaging video, honing your communication, creativity, and critical thinking skills. You'll also have the opportunity to compete in the Breakthough Junior Challenge (BJC), a prestigious global science competition for high-school students with exciting prizes!

As long as your subject relates to physics or mathematics in some manner, you are encouraged to also submit your final capstone project to the BJC!

If your video is selected as the Winner, you will receive:

If you’re looking for guidance, you can see some of the prior years’ top-scoring entries here and the playlist below. But remember, to show ‘creativity’ your film should be as original as possible.

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COURSE OUTCOMES

By the end of the course, you should be able to:

• Understand matter, atoms and the periodic table

• Learn about acids, bases, gases and chemical reactions

• Explain solutions, chemical bonds and Stoichiometry

• Comprehend atomic and nuclear physics

• Discover thermodynamics and Newton's Laws

• Identify waves, electricity, magnetism and thermal physics

• Describe organic chemistry

• Understand the atmosphere, the universe and the Earth's structure

PREREQUISITES

There are no prerequisites for this course.

The following are the minimum specifications for running Labster simulations:

COURSE CERTIFICATE

Earn a Certificate of Completion which shows that you have completed the course. Not dual-credit eligible.

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