Physics, Grade 12 (PHY621A)

Unit 1: Working Like a Physicist

The science, technology, and society context and the advanced inquiry skills used throughout Physics 12: defining problems, predicting and hypothesizing, designing experiments, using apparatus safely, compiling and interpreting data, communicating clearly, and examining the roles of evidence, peer review, and Canadian contributions in the development of physics.

• Building and testing a prototype
• Evaluating a device you designed
• Designing an experiment
• Carrying out procedures and controlling variables
• Using instruments accurately
• Compiling and organizing data
• Displaying evidence in varied formats
• Interpreting patterns and relationships in data
• Choosing modes of representation
• Defining and delimiting problems
• Stating predictions and hypotheses
• Designing an experiment and identifying variables
• Estimating quantities
• Using apparatus and materials safely
• Communicating and responding to ideas

• Distinguishing scientific questions and technological problems
• How a technology developed over time
• Technologies developed from scientific understanding
• Canadian contributions to science and technology
• Evidence, theories, and paradigms
• The importance of peer review
• How a milestone revolutionized thinking

Unit 2: Application of Vectors

Two-dimensional motion analysed with vectors: the independent horizontal and vertical motion of a projectile.

• Horizontal and vertical motion of a projectile

• Two-dimensional vector analysis of masses and relative motion
• Static equilibrium and static torque

Unit 3: Circular and Planetary Motion

Motion in a circle and orbit: uniform circular motion by algebraic and vector analysis and with Newton's laws; and simple harmonic motion - the relationships among displacement, velocity, and acceleration and the exchange of kinetic and potential energy - and Kepler's laws.

• Describing uniform circular motion
• Circular motion with Newton's laws

• Simple harmonic motion: displacement, velocity, acceleration
• Energy in SHM and Kepler's laws

Unit 4: Electricity and Magnetism

Fields and electromagnetism: the production and properties of static electric charge and how static electricity compares with current; gravitational, electric, and magnetic fields as regions of space with sources and directed field lines, and Newton's law of gravitation and Coulomb's law; and electromagnetic induction, the force on a moving charge and current in a magnetic field, and the magnetic field of a solenoid and straight conductor.

• Producing static electric charge
• Properties of static electric charges
• Static electricity versus electric current

• Fields as regions that affect mass and charge
• Field lines: source and direction
• Electric fields by charge, magnetic fields by poles
• Newton's law of gravitation and Coulomb's law

• Electromagnetic induction
• Force on a moving charge and current
• Magnetic field of a solenoid and conductor