SAMPLE SYLLABUS #1

AP Physics C: Electricity
®

and Magnetism
Curricular Requirements
CR1 Students and teachers have access to college-level resources including a See page:
college-level textbook and reference materials in print or electronic format. 3

CR2 The course provides opportunities to develop student understanding of the See pages:
required content outlined in each of the Unit Guides of the AP Course and 4, 5
Exam Description.

CR3 The course provides opportunities for students to develop the skills related See page:
to Science Practice 1: Visual Interpretation. 7

CR4 The course provides opportunities for students to develop the skills related See page:
to Science Practice 2: Question and Method. 7

CR5 The course provides opportunities for students to develop the skills related See page:
to Science Practice 3: Representing Data and Phenomena. 7

CR6 The course provides opportunities for students to develop the skills related See page:
to Science Practice 4: Data Analysis. 7

CR7 The course provides opportunities for students to develop the skills related See page:
to Science Practice 5: Theoretical Relationships. 7

CR8 The course provides opportunities for students to develop the skills related See page:
to Science Practice 6: Mathematical Routines. 7

CR9 The course provides opportunities for students to develop the skills related See page:
to Science Practice 7: Argumentation. 7

CR10 The course provides students with opportunities to apply their knowledge See page:
of AP Physics concepts to real-world questions or scenarios to help them 8
become scientifically literate citizens.
CR11 Students spend a minimum of 25 percent of instructional time engaged See pages:
in a wide range of hands-on laboratory investigations with an emphasis 3, 4, 8, 9
on inquiry-based labs to support the learning of required content and
development of science practice skills throughout the course.

CR12 The course provides opportunities for students to record evidence of their See page:
scientific investigations in a portfolio of lab reports or a lab notebook (print or 4
digital format).
Advanced Placement
Physics C: Electricity and
Magnetism Sample Syllabus #1

Course Description
AP® Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism is a calculus-based, college-level physics
course, especially appropriate for students planning to specialize or major in the
physical sciences or engineering. Introductory differential and integral calculus are used
throughout the course. The laboratory portion of the course focuses on students asking
questions, making observations and predictions, designing experiments, analyzing data,
and constructing arguments in a collaborative setting where they direct and monitor their
progress. Each student completes a lab notebook or portfolio of lab reports. Students who
take this course are required to take the AP Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism Exam.

Text
Serway, Raymond A., and John W. Jewett, Physics for Scientists and Engineers 8th ed.
2012. Brooks/Cole Cengage Learning. CR1 CR1
The syllabus must cite the
title, author, and publication
Schedule date of a calculus-based,
AP Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism is a yearlong course that meets for 270 minutes college-level textbook.
per week. The modified block scheduling allows for the course to meet 3 times a week for
90 minutes, one 90-minute period per week is dedicated to laboratory practice. CR11 CR11
The syllabus must include

Student Practice an explicit statement

that at least 25 percent
Throughout each unit, Topic Questions will be provided to help students check their of instructional time is
understanding. The Topic Questions are especially useful for confirming understanding of spent engaged in hands-on
difficult or foundational topics before moving on to new content or skills that build upon laboratory investigations,
prior topics. Topic Questions can be assigned before, during, or after a lesson, and as in- with an emphasis on
class work or homework. Students will get rationales for each Topic Question that will inquiry-based labs.
help them understand why an answer is correct or incorrect, and their results will reveal
AND
misunderstandings to help them target the content and skills needed for additional practice.
Laboratory investigations
At the end of each unit, Personal Progress Checks will be provided in class or as must be listed with a title
homework assignments in AP Classroom. Students will get a personal report with feedback and brief description.
on every topic, skill, and question that they can use to chart their progress, and their results Guided- and open-inquiry
will come with rationales that explain every question’s answer. One to two class periods are labs must be labeled.
set aside to re-teach skills based on the results of the Personal Progress Checks.

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Advanced Placement Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism Sample Syllabus #1

Evaluation
Students will be graded on problem sets, quizzes, laboratory work, projects, and exams.
Exams are typically worth 100 points and will consist of questions similar to those on the
AP Exam. Homework assignments and quizzes will consist of problems from the textbook,
supplements, and old AP Exams. Projects include challenge labs and current events
essays. Laboratory work is student-centered and primarily composed of guided-inquiry
or open-inquiry investigations. Grades will be determined by taking the number of points CR12
a student has earned and dividing it by the total number of points that the student could The syllabus must include
have achieved. This decimal is multiplied by 100, and that will be the student’s grade. the components of the
written reports required of
students for all laboratory
Laboratory Practical investigations.
One 90-minute class period per week is dedicated to laboratory work, accounting for AND
approximately 30% of the course. The majority of labs are either guided- or open- The syllabus must include
inquiry based activities in which students engage in hands-on, inquiry-based laboratory an explicit statement that
experiences across a variety of course topics. CR11 students are required to
Each student is required to maintain an electronic portfolio of laboratory work for maintain a lab notebook
every laboratory experience throughout the course. Each lab report must contain a or portfolio (hard copy or
claim/question/hypothesis, experimental procedure and lab equipment used, a visual electronic) that includes all
representation of the experimental setup, experimental data, data analysis, error analysis, their lab reports.
and conclusion(s). CR12

CR2
Outline of Course Content CR2
The syllabus must
AP Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism Course and Exam Description (CED) Units include an outline of the
course content using any
ƒ Unit 1: Electrostatics
organizational approach
ƒ Unit 2: Conductors, Capacitors, and Dielectrics that demonstrates the
ƒ Unit 3: Electric Circuits inclusion of all required
course topics and big ideas
ƒ Unit 4: Magnetic Fields
listed in the AP Course and
ƒ Unit 5: Electromagnetism Exam Description (CED).

Unit Topic Science Practices Big Ideas

1: Electrostatics 1.1 Electrostatics: Charge 1.A, 6.B, 6.C 2, 3, and 4

and Coulomb’s Law

1.2 Electrostatics: Electric Field 1.A, 3.A, 3.D, 4.A, 4.B, 6.B, 6.C
and Electric Potential

1.3 Electrostatics: Electric Potential Due 1.B, 5.A, 5.B, 5.C, 6.B, 6.C
to Point Charges and Uniform Fields

1.4 Electrostatics: Gauss’s Law 1.A, 5.A

1.5 Electrostatics: Fields and Potentials 6.B, 7.A, 7.C, 7.D

of other charge distributions

Assign Unit 1 Progress Check: MCQ

Assign Unit 1 Progress Check: FRQ

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Advanced Placement Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism Sample Syllabus #1

Unit Topic Science Practices Big Ideas

2: Conductors, 2.1: Conductors, Capacitors, Dielectrics: 1.A, 1.E, 5.A, 7.C, 7.D 2, 3, and 4
Capacitors, Dielectrics Electrostatics with Conductors

2.2: Conductors, Capacitors, 1.A, 2.A, 2.B, 2.E,

Dielectrics: Capacitors 5.B, 7.A, 7.D

2.3: Conductors, Capacitors, 2.B, 3.C, 3.D, 5.B, 6.C, 7.A, 7.B
Dielectrics: Dielectrics

Assign Unit 2 Progress Check: MCQ

Assign Unit 2 Progress Check: FRQ

3. Electric Circuits 3.1. Electric Circuits: Current 3.A, 6.A, 6.B, 7.D 3 and 4
and Resistance

3.2. Electric Circuits: Current, 1.A, 1.C, 1.D, 2.C, 2.D, 3.A
Resistance, and Power

3.3. Electric Circuits: Steady-State 1.B, 2.F, 3.B, 4.A,

Direct-Current Circuits with 4.B, 4.C, 4.D, 7.F
Batteries and Resistors Only

3.4 Capacitors in Circuits 1.A, 1.D, 2.D, 3.C, 3.D, 6.C, 7.B

Assign Unit 3 Progress Check: MCQ

Assign Unit 3 Progress Check: FRQ

4. Magnetic Fields 4.1. Magnetic Fields: Forces on Moving 2.B, 3.D, 6.C, 7.A, 7.C, 7.D 1, 3, and 4
Charges in Magnetic Fields

4.2. Magnetic Fields: Forces on Current 2.C, 2.D, 2.F, 3.A,

Carrying Wires in Magnetic Fields 6.B, 7.D, 7.E, 7.F

4.3. Magnetic Fields: Fields of Long 3.B, 3.C, 5.E, 7.C

Current-Carrying Wires

4.4 Magnetic Fields: Biot-Savart 5.D, 5.E, 7.A

Law and Ampere’s Law

Assign Unit 4 Progress Check: MCQ

Assign Unit 4 Progress Check: FRQ

5. Electromagnetism 5. Electromagnetism: Electromagnetic 1.D, 1.E, 6.D, 7.A, 7.E 2, 3, and 4

Induction (Including Faraday’s
Law and Lenz’s Law)

5. Electromagnetism: Inductance 5.A, 6.B, 6.C, 7.D

(Including LR Circuits)

5. Electromagnetism: Maxwell’s Equations 1.E, 4.C, 4.E, 5.E, 7.D

Assign Unit 5 Progress Check: MCQ

Assign Unit 5 Progress Check: FRQ

The Big Ideas of the Course CR2

ƒ Big Idea 1: Interactions produce changes in motion
ƒ Big Idea 2: Forces characterize interactions between objects or systems
ƒ Big Idea 3: Fields predict and describe interactions
ƒ Big Idea 4: Conservation Laws constrain interactions

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Advanced Placement Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism Sample Syllabus #1

SAMPLE ACTIVITIES

Big Activities CED

Idea Units

1 In Units 4 and 5, Big Idea 1 is developed through problem solving 4, 5

involving the presence of a magnetic field around a moving charged
particle, such as in a mass spectrometer problem that causes a change
in motion of the charged particle. Problems in Unit 5 address Big
Idea 1, for instance, students are required to describe qualitatively
how electromagnetic braking can cause changes in motion.

2 In Units 1 and 2, Big Idea 2 is developed through application of Coulomb’s 1, 2

Law governing the force that characterizes interactions between charged
conductors and induced charge on insulators. For instance, students
will experiment qualitatively with sticky tape that is statically charged,
neutral paper, and neutral aluminum foil to investigate the claim that
like charges repel and opposite charges attract. Students will also
apply this in the study of capacitors and dielectrics in their ability to
store electrical potential and increase capacitance respectively.

3 In Units 1, 2, and 4, Big Idea 3 is developed. For instance, in studying 1, 2, 4

electrostatics, students will work in small groups to determine the
electric field strength at the center of a conducting spherical shell
using symmetry arguments; in Unit 2, students will create sketches of
a simple, parallel-plate capacitor and the field between the plates and
then a sketch of the same capacitor once a dielectric is inserted in order
to explain how the capacitance of the capacitor changes upon insertion
of the dielectric; in Unit 4, students will predict and experimentally
determine the forces acting on two current-carrying wires and use
their understanding of fields to predict what direction the wires will
accelerate depending on the direction of current flow in each wire.

4 In Units 1, 2, and 3, Big Idea 4 is developed. Students will engage in 1, 2, 3

activities and labs relevant to conservation of charge in Units 1 and 2;
in Unit 3 students will analyze DC circuits using Kirchhoff’s Rules and
relate them to Conservation of Charge and Conservation of Energy.

The Science Practices of the Course

ƒ Science Practice 1: Visual Representations
ƒ Science Practice 2: Question and Method
ƒ Science Practice 3: Representing Data and Phenomena
ƒ Science Practice 4: Data Analysis
ƒ Science Practice 5: Theoretical Relationships
ƒ Science Practice 6: Mathematical Routines
ƒ Science Practice 7: Argumentation

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Advanced Placement Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism Sample Syllabus #1

SAMPLE ACTIVITIES

Science Practice Activities

SP1 Field-Lines, Equipotentials, and Free-Body Diagrams: Throughout the course students will be required to
graphically represent electric field lines around groups of charges and conductors, such as through the
Mapping the E-Field Lab, magnetic field lines around differently shaped magnets in the Mapping the B-Field
Lab, and visually representing the forces acting on current carrying wires or charged objects using Free-Body
Diagrams. [SP1.A, 1.B, 1.C, 1.D] CR3

SP2 DC Circuit Lab: In this guided-inquiry lab, students are provided with a number of different types of unlabeled
resistors, and students must design an investigation to determine whether each resistor is ohmic or
non-ohmic. [SP2.A, 2.B, 2.C, 2.D, 2.F] CR4

SP3 RC Circuits Lab: Students will be required to sketch graphs of potential difference vs. time and current vs.
time across charging and discharging capacitors and across resistors in the circuit. [SP3.A, 3.C] CR5

SP4 Slinky Solenoid Lab: In this guided-inquiry lab, students will use a conducting slinky and voltage source
to graphically determine a value for µ0. [SP4.C, 4.D, 4.E] CR6

SP5 Problem-Solving: Students will be required to apply Gauss’s Law to determine electric field strength at some
radial distance from the source using appropriate Gaussian surfaces, such as using cylindrical gaussian
surfaces for finding E-Field strength at some height above a uniformly charged large, thin sheet conductor.
[SP5.A, 5.E] CR7

SP6 Time-Varying Current Analysis in RC Circuits: Students will work in groups to derive an expression for current
as a function of time while a capacitor in an RC circuit is charging or discharging by solving a differential
equation. Students will assess and discuss the reasonableness of their resulting expressions by examining
the output of the derived equation given certain extreme inputs, e.g., t = 0. [SP6.A, 6.B, 6.D] CR8

SP7 TIPER Activity: Students will individually complete ranking tasks throughout the course; for instance,
students may be asked to rank the relative magnitude and direction of an induced current due to
changing magnetic flux. After individually completing the task, students will share their answers in
groups and collaborate to form a consensus ranking to share with the class. [SP7.A, 7.C, 7.D] CR9

CR3 CR4 CR5 CR6

The syllabus must The syllabus must The syllabus must The syllabus must include
include one activity include one activity or lab include one activity one assignment, activity, or
or lab describing how describing how students or lab describing how lab describing how students
students analyze and/ determine scientific students create visual analyze quantitative data
or use nonnarrative/ questions and methods. representations or models represented in graphs. The
nonmathematical The activity or lab must be of physical situations. The assignment, activity, or lab
representations of physical labeled with the relevant activity or lab must be must be labeled with the
situations, excluding skill(s) associated with labeled with the relevant relevant skill(s) associated
graphs. The activity or lab Science Practice 2. skill(s) associated with with Science Practice 4.
must be labeled with the Science Practice 3.
relevant skill(s) (e.g., “1.B”)
associated with Science
Practice 1. CR7 CR8 CR9
The syllabus must include The syllabus must include The syllabus must include
one assignment, activity, or one assignment, activity, one assignment, activity, or
lab describing how students or lab describing how lab describing how students
determine the effects on students solve problems of develop an explanation or
a quantity when another physical situations using a scientific argument. The
quantity or the physical mathematical relationships. assignment, activity, or lab
situation changes. The The assignment, activity, or must be labeled with the
assignment, activity, or lab lab must be labeled with the relevant skill(s) related to
must be labeled with the relevant skill(s) associated Science Practice 7.
relevant skill(s) associated with Science Practice 6. As long as one skill under
with Science Practice 5. Science Practice 7 is
represented, evidence is
sufficient.

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Advanced Placement Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism Sample Syllabus #1

Real-World Applications in the Course

Students will be exposed to multiple real-world applications of calculus-based physics
throughout the course. Within each unit there will be opportunities for students to explore
direct application of concepts.

CR10
Sample Activities CR10
The syllabus must label
Electric Motor Challenge: Students are challenged to apply their understanding of and provide a description of
electricity and magnetism to construct electric motors from basic construction materials, at least one assignment or
magnets, and batteries. Students are required to create a short presentation of physical activity requiring students
laws relevant to the construction of a working motor and to demonstrate the efficacy of to apply their knowledge
their motor by having it lift a small mass from the ground to the top of the lab table using of AP Physics concepts
a simple pulley attachment. to understand real-world
Building an Electromagnet: Students are challenged to create a solenoid wrapping around questions or scenarios.
a ferrite core and connect the ends of their magnet wire to a voltage source. Students test
their electromagnets by seeing how many paperclips can be suspended from their magnet
when it is turned on. Students then use compasses and a Hall-effect sensor to detect the
magnetic field strength and magnetic field lines around their electromagnet and compare
their findings to other permanent magnets they have encountered earlier in the course.

LIST OF LABORATORY PRACTICAL

CED Topics Lab Activities CR11 CR11

Unit The syllabus must include
1 Electrostatics Sticky Tape Lab – Students use scotch tape, aluminum foil, and an explicit statement
paper to investigate like and opposite charge interactions as well that at least 25 percent
as charging by induction. of instructional time is
Electroscope Investigation – Students use electroscopes and spent engaged in hands-on
charging rods to investigate charging by conduction, induction, laboratory investigations,
and grounding.
with an emphasis on
Coulomb’s Law Lab (Guided-Inquiry) – Students are challenged to inquiry-based labs.
devise a method to determine Coulomb’s Constant using charged
pith balls hanging from insulated threads. AND
Mapping Electric Field and Equipotential Lab – Students use Laboratory investigations
multimeters to identify equipotential lines around charged objects must be listed with a title
and trace the electric field lines.
and brief description.
2 Conductors, Construct a Capacitor Lab – Students use transparency sheets, Guided- and open-inquiry
Capacitors, and paper, tape, paperclips, and aluminum foil to construct and labs must be labeled.
Dielectrics test a capacitor.

3 Electric Circuits Ohm’s Law Lab (Guided-Inquiry) – Students are provided with
different ohmic resistors and develop a procedure by which they can
determine Ohm’s Law with a simple circuit.
Ohmic Resistors Investigation (Guided-Inquiry) – Students are
provided with different types of resistors and develop a procedure
by which they can determine whether each resistor is ohmic
or non-ohmic.
Resistivity Lab (Guided-Inquiry) – Students are provided with
carbon graphite and are challenged to determine the resistivity
of the material.
Simple Circuits Lab (Open-Inquiry) – Students investigate
equivalent resistance and Kirchhoff’s Rules using simple circuits.
RC Circuits Lab – Students predict and experimentally verify
the time constant for an RC circuit charging and discharging.

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Advanced Placement Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism Sample Syllabus #1

CED Topics Lab Activities CR11

Unit

4 Magnetic Fields Mapping Magnetic Fields Lab (Open-Inquiry) – Students

investigate and map magnetic fields generated by various
sources using a wide range of measurement techniques.

5 Electromagnetism Construct an Electromagnet Lab – Students use magnet wire

and a ferrite core to construct and test an electromagnet.
Slinky Solenoid Lab (Guided-Inquiry) – Students are challenged
to find a value for µ0 using a metal slinky as a solenoid.
Electromagnetic Induction Lab (Guided-Inquiry) – Students are
challenged to design an experiment to determine the variables that
affect the EMF that can be induced in a coil by a permanent magnet.
LR/LC Circuits Lab – Students predict and experimentally verify
the time constant for LR circuits and the behavior of LC circuits.
Electric Motor Challenge (Guided-Inquiry) – Students are
challenged to design and construct a working electric motor that
can lift a known mass from the ground to the top of a lab table.

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