As we strive to build stronger fluency and understanding complex topics, we start to look at how and when subjects and concepts are taught to students across all levels of our organization. One of the things we have started seeing come up in the science teaching community over the last decade is the concept of the “PCB sequence” which means “Physics, Chemistry, Biology” with conceptual physics taken first, then chemistry and biology last.
Most of us have been taught differently, with biology first, then chemistry and last (if at all), physics. When chemistry and physics are predominantly math courses, this makes sense: one doesn’t always have the prerequisite math coursework to take chemistry or physics until sophomore year. The problem becomes that biology is a lot of memorization (because students don’t have the necessary physics and chemistry background to fully understand biology concepts) and chemistry and physics are more about learning calculations, becoming proficient on those calculations and remembering where or when to apply the right calculation. None of this produces a full understanding of the sciences. It’s entirely possible for students (all the way into college) to be able to produce the correct answers without understanding WHY or how those answers are correct.
Organizations focused on students genuinely understanding science have been trying to push their schools to move to the PCB sequence for several reasons. First, conceptual physics is not math-intensive and creates a foundation of knowledge and scientific reasoning that carries students through their life as much as their further education. It also gives students who may never do higher level physics the barebones foundation they need to understand all manner of things not just in the sciences, but in life. For instance, basic physical safety can often be enhanced with some basic conceptual physics knowledge. The concepts introduced here carry a student into chemistry and both the chemistry and physics concepts carry students into a much deeper understanding of biology. In fact, in most college first level biology classes and (to a lesser extent) many high school biology classes, the first few weeks are…. (drumroll please) physics and chemistry.
Our organization teaches using Modeling Instruction which is a Socratic method of teaching lab sciences by taking them down the path of the original scientists who made the discoveries that became the scientific theories and laws governing science today. Students are given the short path through those centuries and the instructor puts before them the experiments and challenges that expose students to the concepts being addressed, throw a wrench into their thinking and/or move them away from misconceptions. In the end, they can tell you how it works and why it works. This understanding makes the math very easy. When you truly understand, the math is really just a matter of plugging things into your understanding of how things work.
At Prairie Paideia, we start our students on this journey young. Our elementary level students are immersed in Socratic dialogue – questioning everything and citing their observations or evidence for what they’re saying. They are presenting their experiences to the group and the group is discussing it. The same happens through the upper grades and all of their core subjects.
We’d love to have your family join us. Change their trajectory.