Curriculum Map

Introductory Physics

Author:
Martin Hackworth, Senior Lecturer, Idaho State University, Pocatello, Idaho

This Curriculum Map provides a list of highly relevant and engaging content from throughout AccessScience for use in enriching your teaching. Site assets such as graphs, diagrams, and animations have been mapped to standard topics taught in an introductory Physics course. Use the "Copy Link" functionality to paste a direct link from each asset into your school's learning management system for easy incorporation into your curriculum.

Course Topics


Mechanics
Asset Description
Biography This biography presents the contributions of Sir Isaac Newton—regarded as one of the greatest scientists ever to have lived—to the field of physics. copy link
Article This brief article summarizes Newton's laws—the three basic principles that govern all motion. copy link
Article This concise article explains kinematics, the description of objects in motion. copy link
Article Section This article section covers the basic concepts of dynamics, the description of how forces influence motion. copy link
Article Section This section of the Dynamics article, along with its equations, describe Newton's second law, F = ma. copy link
Animation This animation, entitled Collision, compares and contrasts elastic and inelastic collisions between objects. copy link
Animation This animation describes the concept of work as it applies to physics. copy link
News This news article, Skateboarders rock physics, describes how some athletes are better able to correctly anticipate how a mechanical system behaves, based on experience, compared to some students of physics. copy link
Biography This biography reveals the contributions of Galileo to the study of motion. copy link
Conservation of Energy and Momentum
Asset Description
Article Section This section of the Conservation of energy article defines the mechanical energy of a system. copy link
Animation This animation illustrates conservation of mechanical energy. copy link
Article This brief article describes the concept of conservation of momentum. copy link
Animation Conservation of momentum is illustrated here through an animation of colliding balls. copy link
Article Section This section of the Conservation laws article defines and describes various conservation properties in classical mechanics. copy link
Gravity
Asset Description
Article This brief article defines gravity close to Earth's surface. copy link
Animation This animation shows how the force of gravity influences objects close to Earth's surface. copy link
Article This brief article defines the important mechanical concept of center of gravity. copy link
Article Section This concept of weightlessness is explained in this article section. copy link
Harmonic Motion and Sound Waves
Asset Description
Animation An animated weight on a string demonstrates the concept of harmonic motion, which is fundamental to understanding wave phenomena. copy link
Animation This animation presents the basic characteristics of sound waves. copy link
Article This brief article describes the amplitude of waves. copy link
Article This article describes and illustrates beats, which occur with the superposition of waves. copy link
Article Section This first section of the Acoustic noise article defines and describes the propagation of sound waves. copy link
Animation This animation brings to life the phenomenon of sound echoes. copy link
Article Section This section of the Acoustic noise article describes the response of the human auditory system to sound. copy link
News This news article, Sound cloaks enter the third dimension, is a good introduction to sound-cloaking technology. copy link
Thermodynamics
Asset Description
Biography This biography details the work of Sadi Carnot, who founded the branch of physics known as thermodynamics. copy link
Diagram This diagram, from the article on thermodynamic principles, illustrates the second law of thermodynamics. copy link
Article This brief article defines heat in thermodynamics. copy link
Article Section This section of the article on temperature measurement defines and describes temperature scales. copy link
Biography This biography of Ludwig Boltzmann details his contributions to the kinetic theory of gases and thermodynamics. copy link
News This news article, entitled Molecules get a big chill, describes a technique for slowing down molecular motion. copy link
Article Section This article section defines and describes statistical mechanics. copy link
Electricity and Magnetism
Asset Description
Biography This biography details the work of Michael Faraday, who pioneered electric motors, electric generators, electric transformers and other inductive devices. copy link
Biography This biography presents the life and work of André-Marie Ampère, who invented the branch of physics known as electrodynamics. copy link
Biography James Clerk Maxwell summarized the works of Faraday, Ampère and others into a concise set of equations governing electromagnetic phenomena. copy link
Diagram This diagram illustrates eddy currents in a conducting disk moving through a magnetic field. copy link
Article Section This section of the article on eddy currents, entitled Braking and damping, describes and illustrates the operation of a common type of home electricity use meter. copy link
News This news article, The electric flour voltage test, describes how some granular materials produce a potential difference when disturbed. copy link
Biography This biography of Nikola Tesla details his contributions to the fields of physics and engineering. copy link
Article Section This article section, entitled Dynamic drivers, describes the operation of loudspeakers of the electromagnetic transducer type. copy link
Diagram This diagram, from the article Resistor, shows examples of resistor color codes. copy link
Light
Asset Description
Animation This animation explains how a material's chemical composition affects the wavelengths of light it absorbs and the color it displays. copy link
Article Section This article section describes and illustrates the scattering of light. copy link
News This news article, entitled Twisted light transmits more data, describes a high-bandwidth technique for data transmission via light. copy link
Biography This biography illuminates the life of Armand Fizeau, a pioneer in speed-of-light measurements. copy link
Animation This animation shows how lasers result from light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation, and explains why laser beams are sharply focused. copy link
Modern Physics
Asset Description
Biography This biography of Albert Einstein details his contributions to 20th-century physics. copy link
Article This brief article defines and explains one of the most important quantities in the microscopic world, Planck's constant. copy link
News This news article describes the application of uncertainty, something normally measurable only at small scales, to cosmic events. copy link
Graph This figure ;from the article Heat radiation shows the behavior of blackbody radiators at three different temperatures. copy link
Research Review This article describes the discovery of the Higgs boson particleat the LHC facility in Europe during the summer of 2012. copy link