[PatrickHenry]

There's no reason not to have two physics courses in high school. The advanced course could come after some serious math had been learned. The early course could survey the history of the subject, the philosophy of science (scientific method, etc.) and it could easily take the student through the basic principles of several topics. Copernicus, Galileo, etc. had no calculus, and much of Newton's work doesn't require it either. An understanding of something as "exotic" as special relativity doesn't require all that much in the way of advanced math.

[scitch]

"There's no reason not to have two physics courses in high school."
Are you serious? How about the fact that students have to cover Biology, chemistry, physics, and earth science in four years? Where are they going to fit that fifth science class? Why not do it right the first time when they have the tools necessary to do it. Which of those subjects would you like students to give up so that they could take the history of physics? I don't know of any middle school students who take trigonometry, not even basic trig. If you think that special relativity doesn't require advanced math, then you have no idea what special relativity is. And the logic behind it is beyond most human beings, not just 9th graders. I include myself in that group of human beings who don't have a complete understanding of special relativity.