4.0 Starting MYP Physics
This unit of inquiry introduces MYP Physics as a subject. What is Physics about? What do Physicists do? How do Physicists think? And most important of all... how can you be a Physicist?
Every unit / topic in this MYP course explores an over-arching 'conceptual understanding' - to put the same thing a different way, it is your inquiry into these 'big ideas' that make the course. In exploring each conceptual understanding, you will come to see the world through the eyes of a physicist - and that physicist is you!
Inquiry questions are more focused questions that guide your inquiry into the conceptual understandings. They are the starting points in a bread-crumb trail that lead you deeper into the workings of nature.
Factual - factual inquiry questions are the buidling-blocks on which everything rests. They are the what?, which?, and how much? questions.
Conceptual - conceptual questions are about ideas and relationships between facts and values. They invite you to wonder how things are connected and how they affect each other.
Debatable - debatable questions challenge you to think outside the box and to consider the implications of your learning. What might it mean? What could be the ethical issues of this physics, and what action can you take?
Approaches to Learning focus: the tasks that you complete in each unit (whether to check your understanding, or for summative assessment at the end of the unit) are all designed to embed approaches to learning skills
Assessment opportunities: Many lessons will have assessments, where you can demonstrate what you have learnt. Sometimes these will be formative, meaning that they require that you demonstrate only some of the levels of achievement in each of the MYP Sciences assessment criteria, and they can be used to give you some feedback on your learning and how to improve it. Sometimes they will be summative, which means that you can demonstrate all aspects of your learning in this topic for a given assessment criterion, and your teacher can use that to give you a grade.
The blue boxes then contain the information and examples that help you build your own answers to the inquiry questions.
These will include many different kinds of source - from images through videos to simulations and apps. It will also include links to quick activities to help you to understand a concept, often from the MYP 4-5 Grab bag
Activity / Check for understanding
At the end of each lesson page, you will find some quick questions or activities to check your understanding. The apps here all give you the answers if you ask for them!
Assessment opportunities
Here you will find links to separate activities and inquiries that your teacher can ask you to do. These might be anything from tests, experiments, investigations, explorations and more. Assessment opportunities allow you to demonstrate your level of achievement on the MYP Sciences criteria.
Put your learning into action
This a space where you will find connections are made to real-life situations and problems connected to your inquiry. These will very often be situated in an MYP global context and they invite you to put your scientific understanding to work in engaging with the situation and maybe making the world a better place...
Reflection is what turns your learning into experience, and - who knows? - maybe even wisdom! In this space you will find opportunities to put your learning in a bigger context, taking a step back to look at the whole picture. You may be invited to return again to the conceptual understanding and consider its implications. You might be asked to think about how you feel about the physics you have learnt, and how you can manage your time and your emotions to make your learning optimal.