Harvard Project Physics

Harvard Project Physics was a national curriculum development project to create a secondary school physics education program in the United States. The project was active from 1962 to 1972, and produced the Project Physics series of texts, which were used in physics classrooms in the 1970s and 1980s. The project was centered at Harvard University, but drew from schools and educators from across the country. The directors of this project were: F. James Rutherford, with the Department of Science Education at New York University; Gerald Holton, with the Department of Physics, Harvard University; and Fletcher G. Watson, with the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Australian adaptation

A regionalization of the original Harvard Physics course was undertaken in New South Wales during 1971 and 1972. Only minimal changes were made to reflect differences in classroom practices. Many teachers from various Australian states were involved. Major contributors were: R. Faggotter - Hornsby Girls High School; I. Guy - School of mathematics and Physics Macquarie University (SMPMU); J. Hall - SMPMU; R. Hewitt - School of Physics, Sydney University; J. Kirby - SMPMU; R. McInnes - School of Physics, Sydney University; B. Price - Santa Sabina College Strathfield; K. Mahony - Homebush Boys High School; C. Quninlan - Marist Brothers High School Westmead.

References

• [1] "The Project Physics Course, Then and Now" by Gerald Holton, from the journal Science & Education
• [2] "Harvard Project Physics: a report on its aims and current status" by Gerald Holton, from the journal Physics Education, Volume 4, Issue 1, pp. 19–25 (1969)
• [3] "Harvard project physics - A cogent approach" by Arnold J. Moore, from Science Education
• [4] an example of a slide rule developed for the project