Physics, Grade 11 (PHY521A)

Unit 1: Working Like a Physicist

The science, technology, and society context and the inquiry skills used throughout Physics 11: asking investigable questions, designing and carrying out controlled experiments, using instruments and building prototypes, analysing and communicating data, and examining how physics and technology shape each other and society.

• Identifying questions to investigate
• Carrying out procedures and controlling variables
• Using research tools to gather information
• Interpreting patterns and relationships in data
• Working co-operatively and troubleshooting
• Designing an experiment
• Selecting instruments and processes
• Using instruments accurately
• Building and testing a prototype
• Displaying evidence in tables and graphs
• Comparing theoretical and empirical values
• Stating a conclusion from evidence
• Stating predictions and hypotheses
• Formulating operational definitions
• Implementing sampling procedures
• Integrating information from sources
• Evaluating the reliability of data

• How a milestone revolutionized thinking
• How technology advances scientific understanding
• Explaining technologies with physics principles
• Evaluating designs with energy and momentum
• Analysing natural and technological systems
• Society's influence on science and technology
• Communicating results with conventions
• How a technology developed over time
• Technologies developed from scientific understanding
• Distinguishing science and technology questions
• Risks and benefits of applying science

Unit 2: Kinematics

The description of motion: frames of reference; vectors for position, displacement, velocity, acceleration, and force; and the graphical and mathematical analysis of the relationships among displacement, velocity, acceleration, and time for uniformly accelerated motion.

• Frame of reference for motion
• Vectors for motion and force
• Displacement, velocity, and time

Unit 3: Dynamics

The causes of motion: Newton's laws of motion - inertia, the relationship among force, mass, and acceleration (F = ma), and the interaction of forces between two objects (action and reaction).

• Applying Newton's laws of motion

Unit 4: Momentum and Energy

Conservation laws for motion: momentum and its conservation in one-dimensional collisions and explosions; work, power, and the forms of mechanical energy; the conservation of mechanical energy and the work-energy theorem; and the percent efficiency of energy transformations.

• Conservation of momentum

• Work, force, and displacement
• Work, time, and power
• Conservation of energy
• Mechanical energy as kinetic plus potential
• Kinematics and dynamics via mechanical energy
• The work-energy theorem
• Choosing momentum or energy conservation
• Percent efficiency of energy transformations

Unit 5: Waves

The physics of waves: the characteristics of longitudinal and transverse waves; the wave equation; reflection and refraction; interference, diffraction, and the Doppler effect; and the properties and production of sound and electromagnetic radiation.

• Longitudinal and transverse waves
• The wave equation
• Reflection and refraction

• Interference, diffraction, and the Doppler effect
• Comparing sound and electromagnetic radiation
• How sound and radiation are produced and transmitted