Do elementary schools ignore physics?

Abstract

Many secondary students claim that they have never learned physics, despite being currently enrolled in a physics class. The students were able to easily name and describe topics of biology but could name fewer for chemistry and even fewer for physics. Secondary students already had formed strong opinions on how they view the sciences, so we wanted to look prior to this age band to see what is going on. Our research questions for this study are: 1) Is physics being ignored in elementary curricula?; 2) How do the different states and sets of standards impact how elementary science is taught?; and 3) Can we explain why students can’t identify physics?