Samo to offer new AP Physics courses in new school year

Starting in the 2019-20 school year, Samo will be offering AP Physics A and AP Physics Electricity and Magnetism (E/M) in addition to the AP Physics C and regular, non-honors Physics class. AP Physics C has been known to be one of the most challenging classes at Samo, requiring students to have already completed Pre Calc/Calc A. To combat this, AP Physics A is being offered for students who have only completed Algebra 2, and E/M will be targeted towards students planning to pursue a major in engineering or another high level science in college.

According to current AP Physics C teacher, Rebecca Yaghoubian, the new physics class will be implemented mainly as a way to give juniors the opportunity to take AP Physics. Before this, the school only offered Physics P and AP Physics, two classes that have a large gap in terms of difficulty, prestige and workload.

The administration feels this course will greatly benefit students who are interested in physics but are not yet taking calculus. The new physics course is more writing and less math based as opposed to the current AP Physics, which the administration hopes will appeal to students who were concerned that they would just be adding another math class rather than a science. However, this does not mean that AP Physics A is easier, the college board still considers all AP Physics to be a similar workload.

“I'm excited that the new course is a little more conceptual. People will get a really good understanding of physics. It’s also going to allow more students to take AP Physics,” Yaghoubian said.

Although AP Physics is a daunting task, Alana Ginter (’21) feels more than up to the challenge. Ginter has had an interest in physics and engineering since middle school, and now because of the new class being offered she can take physics junior and senior year.

“I’m really happy because the administration has given Samo students an opportunity to learn physics before senior year and to understand whether or not they like physics before jumping into a course as hard as AP Physics C,” Ginter said.

Ben Capehart (’19) was able to take AP Physics C junior year, and had an enjoyable and interesting experience. Although he was skeptical about taking a course as difficult as physics without any prior calculus knowledge, he encourages people to try it out.

“Physics was a fun class and the teachers are both very easy to talk to as well as helpful. I would recommend it, but only to people who like math, and more specifically word problems,” Capehart said.

Although it has yet to be determined who among the physics teachers is going to be teaching the class, it will open up the opportunity for many juniors to try a subject they’ve never been exposed to before.

Dr. Antonio Shelton believes there is a huge importance in expanding on subjects that students are excited to learn about.

“If kids show interest in something we need to make sure that we can provide as much of that as possible to support them long term, specially around curriculum,” Shelton said.