Experience Physics – High School Physics Curriculum

Our modern physics curriculum organizes learning around phenomena by engaging students with authentic, real-world experiences. Hands-on and digital activities connect to and excite each learner.

  • Process-focused math and stepped-out solutions
  • Comprehensive suite of assessments for 3D Learning”
  • Interactive tools improve comprehension
Experience Physics is a high school physics curriculum that organizes learning around physics phenomena.

Modern Physics Curriculum with Digital Resources

Transform your classroom into a place of curiosity and discovery as students learn physics by doing physics.

Experience Physics high school physics curriculum organizes learning around physics phenomena.

Teach with Phenomena


Experience Physics®
integrates phenomenon-based learning for deeper student engagement.

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Simplify Physics Math


A variety of resources and strategies are provided to promote key math skills for physics.

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Unpack Ready-Made Labs

Save time and effort with exclusive, ready-to-use lab kits from our Flinn partnership.

Teach modern physics with hands-on resources.

Engage Every Student


Experience Physics® delivers dynamic, hands-on resources to engage all students.

High School Physics Teaching Solutions

  • Educator Resources
  • Student Resources
  • Flinn Scientific® Lab Resources
  • Assessments

Educator Resources

  • Instructional Support Package
    Instructors have access to a robust support package with print and digital resources designed to streamline classroom management.
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Student Resources

  • Multiple Engagement Approaches
    Students practice a variety of ways to discuss and explain ideas, ask questions and present their findings
  • Math and Physics Skills Workbook
    Aligned with the curriculum, it provides targeted practice, reinforcing key concepts and preparing students for success in physics
  • Math Support Tools
    Seamlessly integrate math concepts into physics instruction for enhanced student comprehension
  • College and Career Readiness
    Prepare students for real-world applications and future STEM opportunities.
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Flinn Lab Resources

  • Broad Support Kits
    Engage students in hands-on learning experiences that reinforce key concepts and promote scientific inquiry
  • Curriculum-Aligned Materials
    Access high-quality, standards-aligned lab activities and resources that foster hands-on exploration, critical thinking, and scientific discovery in your classroom
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Assessments

  • Formative
    Continuously monitor progress, identify areas of improvement, and inform instruction to ensure student success
  • Summative
    Evaluate learning outcomes, track progress, and inform instructional decisions for enhanced student success
  • Performance-Based
    Assess student application of knowledge, problem-solving abilities, and critical thinking in real-world contexts
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Take a deeper look into Experience Physics’s features

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Program Overview

Discover how Experience Physics® creates a class environment and structure that helps every student succeed.

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Why Can’t We Walk Through Walls?

Experience Physics author Dr. Christopher Moore discusses the physical principles at work in this extended video.

New Digital Technologies for K-12 Ecosystem

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Savvas Realize brings our award-winning content to life in an exciting digital experience that students love. For teachers and admins, it includes valuable classroom-management tools like auto-rostering, single-sign-on, and available integrations with many top K-12 LMSs.

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A next-generation learning solution that provides an all-inclusive, one-year digital license to our most popular Math, Literacy, Science, and Social Studies national K–12 programs.

School Stories

In these inspirational stories, you'll learn about what schools and districts from across the country are doing to help students succeed and shape the future of education.

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Frequently Asked Questions About Experience Physics

  • What is Experience Physics and what are its components?

    What is Experience Physics and what are its components?

    Experience Physics® is a next generation high school physics program that puts the focus on the student experience. This modern program implements a learning model that organizes learning around phenomena giving students an authentic, real-world experience. Experience Physics includes a variety of hands-on and digital activities designed to reach every learner. Students complete hands-on inquiry labs, virtual labs, simulations, data analysis, claim-evidence reasoning exercises and more on their sensemaking journey. An assessment package with formative, summative, performance-based assessments provide opportunity for students to demonstrate their understanding three dimensionally. Instructors have access to a robust support package with print and digital resources designed to streamline classroom management.

    Take an Interactive Tour of Experience Physics.
    The program components include:
    Experience Physics digital courseware on Savvas Realize® includes robust digital tools that give teachers flexibility to use a digital, print, or blended format in their classrooms. Teachers can customize the program to rearrange content, upload their own content, add links to online media, and edit resources and assessments. Program-specific resources, flexible agnostic resources, and assessments are available in one location for easy lesson planning and presentation.

    Teacher Guide - Available in digital and print, the Teacher Guide provides robust lesson planners based on the 5E learning model, explicit directions and explanations for introducing phenomena, instructional strategies support students as they make sense of the phenomena, and classroom modifications to adjust instruction based on the diverse student needs, skills, and interests in their classroom.

    Student Handbook - Experience Physics® transforms the traditional textbook into a modern interactive handbook that students will actually use. With Experience Physics, students DO physics first, by interacting with phenomena and completing hands-on and virtual inquiry activities. Then students complete readings, formative assessments, and math practice in their Student Experience Handbook.

    Student Math Skills Workbook - This student worktext, available in digital and print, includes four pages of practice for every learning experience. This resource reinforces physics content knowledge and three dimensional learning with visual summaries of the main ideas and interactive prompts that support problem solving skills.
    Flinn Scientific Lab Kits - Flinn Scientific is our partner for the Experience Physics curriculums. Optional lab kits are available for each program. Every Flinn Scientific kit supports a classroom of approximately 30 students. Refill kits are also available.


  • How does Experience Physics® incorporate science phenomena?

    The Experience Physics curriculum is organized around phenomena. The program drives student learning through a series of hands-on and virtual student experiences that support their understanding of the phenomenon under study. Students directly engage with different examples of phenomena that relate to authentic real-world scenarios.

    Every Storyline (the unit of instruction) launches inquiry with an Anchoring Phenomenon video and demonstration. This real-world science phenomenon sparks curiosity as students make observations and ask questions while giving students a purpose as they engage in activities to make sense of this phenomenon and connect physics concepts through a unifying unique occurrence. Throughout the Storyline, students revisit the anchoring phenomenon question and discuss the real-world impact of the problem as they propose solutions. By the end of the storyline, students are able to explain the anchoring phenomenon.

    A real-world Investigative Phenomenon video and demonstration launches every Investigation (chapter level organization). Students again ask questions, make observations, and track their understanding of the phenomenon in Claim-Evidence-Reasoning (CER) or Modeling exercises. At the end of each Experience students revisit their CER worksheet in a sense-making exercise to review, revise or add to their explanation of how the phenomenon occurs – thus building understanding over time. At the end of the Investigation, students once again are able to explain the phenomenon under study.

    The lessons, called Experiences, are where students encounter everyday phenomena through Flinn Scientific Inquiry Labs, PhET simulations, digital interactivities, videos, teacher demonstrations, modeling activities, data analysis activities, peer review and more. This wide variety of real-world experiences builds student understanding using DCIs, CCCs, and SEPs by interacting with phenomena over time.


  • What differentiation support is available in Experience Physics®?

    The Experience Physics® program includes a variety of resources and instructional strategies that help teachers address the diverse student needs, skills, and interests in their classroom. There are several techniques which are found throughout the different Storylines and Investigations including:

    Hands-on Inquiry Labs are available in four different versions, allowing instructors to differentiate based on student needs and abilities and time constraints. The four versions are open-ended, guided, advanced and short.

    Assess on the Spot: Quick formative assessments designed to assess understanding of key points in the lab or lesson.

    Differentiated Instruction: In the course of the teacher guide narrative, explicit strategies are provided to support struggling students, students with special needs, and advanced students.

    Remediation Suggestions can be found at the Evaluate phase of the learning model to help educators troubleshoot student weaknesses.

    Teacher Guide margin notes, like Classroom Modifications include ideas for modifying aspects of the classroom or lesson.

    WIDA Support addresses the different levels (Speaking/Writing, Entering, Beginning, Developing, Expanding, Bridging) of English Language Development to support students who are acquiring the English language.

    Experience It!: provides teacher support to help connect the kinesthetic activity, Experience It, to an important concept in the experience. Math support is provided to assist those students who struggle with the essential mathematical concepts necessary for physics success and include resources like Math Tutorial Videos.

  • Is the Experience Physics® instructional model research-based?

    The instructional model is based on research conducted by the Instructional Leadership for Science Practices (ILSP), a National Science Foundation project whose goal was to develop tools that support educators in the integration of the Science and Engineering Practices (SEPs) along with the implementation of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).

    Per ILSP’s framework, the science and engineering practices provide a pathway for students to engage sequentially in the processes of investigation, sense-making, and critique.

    This approach has been adapted by incorporating BSCS 5E Model to round out the five-stage learning progression: Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate and Evaluate. The role of phenomena has been intensified in the pedagogy in order to address the need for phenomenon-based learning opportunities as outlined in the NGSS.

  • How do I sign up for an Experience Physics® digital demo?
    Experience Physics® digital courseware on Savvas Realize™ includes robust digital tools that give teachers flexibility to use a digital, print, or blended format in their classrooms. Teachers can customize the program to rearrange content, upload their own content, add links to online media, and edit resources and assessments. Program-specific resources, flexible agnostic resources, and assessments are available in one location for easy lesson planning and presentation. Click here to sign up for a demo of Experience Physics.
  • What types of science material kits does Savvas provide?
    Flinn Scientific is our partner for the Experience Physics curriculum. Optional lab kits are available for each program. Every Flinn Scientific kit supports a classroom of approximately 30 students. Refill kits are also available.
  • Table of Contents

     
    Storyline 1 – Forces in Motion

    Investigation 1: Describing Position and Motion (or Modeling Motion)
    Experience 1- Displacement and Velocity
    Experience 2- Acceleration
    Experience 3- Circular and Projectile Motion

    Investigation 2: Forces
    Experience 1- Force, Mass, and Acceleration
    Experience 2- Types of Forces
    Experience 3- Forces on Systems
    Experience 4- Earth Processes and Forces


    Storyline 2 – Forces at a Distance

    Investigation 3: Gravitational Forces
    Experience 1- Universal Gravitation
    Experience 2- Orbital Motion
    Experience 3- Kepler’s Laws
    Investigation 4: Electric Forces
    Experience 1- Coulomb’s Law
    Experience 2- Electric Fields
    Experience 3- Electric Current

    Investigation 5: Magnetic Forces
    Experience 1- Magnetism
    Experience 2- Magnetic Fields
    Experience 3- Inducing Current

    Investigation 6: Forces in Materials
    Experience 1- Atoms and Atomic Structure
    Experience 2- Attractive and Repulsive Forces
    Experience 3- Material Properties
    Experience 4- Structure and Function

    Storyline 3 – Energy Conversion

    Investigation 7: Energy
    Experience 1- Classifying Energy and Work
    Experience 2- Kinetic and Potential Energy
    Experience 3- Conservation of Energy

    Investigation 8: Collisions
    Experience 1- Momentum and Impulse
    Experience 2- Conservation of Momentum
    Experience 3- Collisions in Earth’s Crust

    Investigation 9: Thermal Energy
    Experience 1- Temperature
    Experience 2- Thermal Equilibrium and Heat Flow
    Experience 3- Heat Flow Within Earth

    Investigation 10: Electromagnetic Energy
    Experience 1- Electric Potential
    Experience 2- Energy in Electric Circuits
    Experience 3- Power Generation
    Experience 4- Energy Resources and Conservation

    Storyline 4 – Waves and Electromagnetic Radiation

    Investigation 11: Waves
    Experience 1- Properties of Waves
    Experience 2- Wave Behavior and Energy
    Experience 3- Wave Optics

    Investigation 12: Electromagnetic Radiation
    Experience 1- Electromagnetic Waves and Their Properties
    Experience 2- Particle-Wave Duality
    Experience 3- EM Radiation and Matter

    Investigation 13: Information and Instrumentation
    Experience 1- Digital Information
    Experience 2- Transmitting and Capturing Information
    Experience 3- Transmitting and Capturing Energy


    Storyline 5 – From the Nucleus to the Universe

    Investigation 14: Nuclear Physics
    Experience 1- Nuclear Forces
    Experience 2- Nuclear Particles
    Experience 3- Fission and Fusion

    Investigation 15: Ages of Rocks
    Experience 1- Radioactive Decay
    Experience 2- Radiometric Dating

    Experience 3- Exploring Patterns in the Ages of Rocks
    Investigation 16: The Universe
    Experience 1- Stars
    Experience 2- The Sun
    Experience 3- The Big Bang



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