Arizona State University Modeling and Harvard Project Physics: Integration and Applicability


 

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Harvard Project Physics:  

Development, Structure, And Adaptability 
 

Jason J. Lindley 

Pelham Memorial High School, Pelham, NY 

 

Abstract 

During the 1970's, Harvard Project Physics was a 

popular curriculum used in high school physics 

classrooms, and sought to change the way physics 

was taught. The materials created were 

revolutionary and had a positive impact on the 

teaching of high school physics. The objective of 

this paper is to explore the development and 

structure of Harvard Project Physics in an effort 

to better understand the scope, sequence, and 

relevance of this historic project.  This 

exploration will serve as the foundation for 

exploring the adaptability of Harvard Project 

Physics to the modern classroom. 

 

Introduction 

Harvard Project Physics was arguably 

one of the most influential physics curriculums 

used in the United States. Although this program 

is not in use today, its impact is evident in the 

field of science education, and its materials are 

still adaptable and useful in teaching high school 

physics. 

Another curriculum, Physics Science 

Study Committee (PSSC) Physics, was developed 

with similar goals. It was used in the 1960‟s, but 

failed because teachers did not have appropriate 

training and “the typical high-school teacher is 

not „a surrogate scientist‟” (French 1986). The 

authors of Harvard Project Physics learned from 

the mistakes of PSSC, and provided workshops 

and extensive notes on how the teacher could use 

the materials to maximize instructional 

effectiveness.  

However, the curriculum is not without 

shortcomings. This paper will explore the 

development and structure of the curriculum and 

identify its strengths and weaknesses. Although 

the Harvard Project Physics materials are 

currently being revised, by David Cassidy at 

Hofstra University (Holton 2003, 785), this paper 

discusses the original materials from the 1970‟s. 

Additionally, since the original Harvard Project 

Physics materials are being used, the paper will 

attempt to present the validity of using older 

materials within today's classrooms. 

 

Program Creators 

  F. James Rutherford was born in 

California in 1924. Shortly after the attack on 

Pearl Harbor, he joined the Navy. After the war 

ended, Rutherford completed his bachelor's 

degree at Berkeley, and then continued to obtain a 

master's in science education from Stanford. After 

teaching high school physics for several years, he 

went to Harvard where he received his doctorate 

in science education in 1961. Dr. Rutherford 

returned to teaching high school physics in 

California for a few years, but departed for 

Harvard in 1964 to become a professor of science 

education (Lange 2005, 4).  

 The second contributing member of 

Harvard Project Physics was Gerald Holton who 

received his bachelor's degree from Wesleyan 

University in 1941 and a master‟s degree in 1942 

before continuing on to obtain a doctorate in 

physics from Harvard in 1948. Dr. Holton became 

a professor of physics at a number of universities 

before beginning work at Harvard, where he 



 

 

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worked in both the physics and history of science 

departments (Holton 2009).  

 The final member of the Harvard Project 

Physics team was Fletcher G. Watson who 

graduated in 1933 from Pomona College and 

went on to receive his doctorate in astronomy 

from Harvard in 1938. Dr. Fletcher did post-

graduate work in the Harvard observatory and 

served in the Navy during WWII. After the war, 

he returned to Harvard where he became a faculty 

member of the Science Education department 

(Watson 1990).  

 

Aims  

 When the authors set out to create 

Project Physics, they first put together a set 

of concise goals for the course. They were: 

  

1. To help students increase their 

knowledge of the physical world by 

concentrating on ideas that characterize 

physics as a science best, rather than 

concentrating on isolated bits of 

information 

2. To help students see physics as the 

wonderfully many-sided human activity 

that it really is. This meant presenting 

the subject in historical and cultural 

perspective, and showing that the ideas 

of physics have a tradition as well as 

ways of evolutionary adaptation and 

change.  

3. To increase the opportunity for each 

student to have immediately rewarding 

experiences in science even when 

gaining the knowledge and skill that will 

be useful in the long run. 

4. To make it possible for instructors to 

adapt the course to the wide range of 

interests and abilities of their students 

5. To take into account the importance of 

the instructor in the educational process, 

and the vast spectrum of teaching 

situations that prevail. (Rutherford, 

Holton, & Watson 1975, vi) 

 

 These aims contain many of the goals of 

the high school physics teacher, but then go above 

and beyond. The first item that was an innovative 

idea for the 1960‟s was that the students are the 

focus. Each aim, either directly or indirectly, 

references the students, which implies that they 

are the core reason for the project. This goes 

along with a student-centered course, in which 

students direct their learning instead of traditional 

lecture where the pacing is determined solely by 

the instructor. This is now more commonplace in 

curriculum development in high school physics 

(Arons 1997).   

 However, unlike most courses, there were 

also aims that include the needs of the teacher, 

and imply that they are skilled professionals that 

can shape the materials as they see fit. The 

authors wanted to make sure that the course they 

were going to create could be adapted by any 

teacher to fit their students‟ needs. Every 

classroom of students is different due to students 

differing ability levels and prior experiences and 

it is important that the teacher can easily adapt the 

materials to fit the students without interrupting 

the integrity of the course. Beginning with these 

goals in mind would help the authors to focus 

their efforts to create the best course possible at 

that time.   

 

Development 

 The Harvard Project Physics curriculum 

was developed in three phases. In the first phase, 

 

[t]he three authors collaborated to lay 

out the main goals and topics of a new 

introductory physics course.  They 

worked together from 1962 to 1964 with 

financial support for the Carnegie 

Corporation of New York, and the first 



 

 

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version of the text was tried out with 

encouraging results. (Rutherford, 

Holton, & Watson 1975, v).   

 

 In the second phase, the authors examined 

the preliminary student achievement results, and 

worked to receive several major grants from U.S. 

Office of Education and the National Science 

Foundation (NSF), beginning in 1964. 

Additionally, there was financial support from the 

Ford Foundation, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, 

Carnegie Corporation, and Harvard University. It 

was at this time that the project was officially 

entitled Harvard Project Physics. With a great 

deal of funding for the project, there was a large 

number of staff and consultants hired. These 

collaborators consisted of physicists, 

astronomers, chemists, historians, philosophers of 

science, college and high school teachers, science 

educators, psychologists, evaluation specialists, 

engineers, filmmakers, artists and graphic 

designers (Rutherford, Holton, & Watson 1970b).    

 In the third phase of the project's 

development, the team concentrated on 

developing, and then later, conducting training 

programs for teachers. Additionally, a great deal 

of time was spent analyzing data and writing 

reports on their findings and the successes of the 

course. This is also the time at which the project 

started to approach the fourth and final aim, 

which included the addition of materials that 

would "reshape the course for special audiences" 

(Rutherford, Holton, & Watson 1975, v). 

 In 1973, President Nixon became 

“disenchanted with scientists” (Holton 2003, 784) 

because many of them were against his politics. 

“One by-product of Nixon‟s displeasure was a 

phasing-out of sections of federal science 

funding; the money for teacher training was fairly 

soon cut off” (Holton 2003, 784). This made it 

extremely difficult for the staff to have a large 

impact on the education system. After a revision 

in 1981, the publisher could not envision doing 

another revision “because of its precarious 

financial condition” (Holton 2003, 784). 

 

 

Structure of Curriculum Materials 

 For each unit within the Harvard Project 

Physics course, there are several materials. These 

include a textbook, teacher guide, handbook, 

reader, tests, and film reels. These materials will 

be described below. 

 The textbook and teacher guide are 

similar. They contain the same content, but the 

teacher guide adds notes for the instructor and 

questions to ask the class. The textbook was 

written in an informal style that is a pleasant 

change from the formal approach of many 

textbooks. The various phenomena are explored 

before definitions are given, but not prior to using 

the technical terms, such as average speed, which 

goes against the advice of Arons (Arons 1997, 

27). The example problems that are given within 

the text are laid out extremely well. For example, 

an equation is given, e.g. “vav = d / t” (Rutherford, 

Holton, & Watson 1975, 24), the conceptual 

names applied, e.g. “average speed = distance 

traveled / elapsed time” (24), values with units, 

e.g. “average speed = 50.0 yd / 56.1 sec” (24), 

and then numerical answer with units, e.g. “0.89 

yd/sec” (24). The authors have made the process 

of algebraic problem solving more accessible by 

breaking the problem into a series of steps, which 

is then explicitly explained. This allows students 

to see each step of the problem clearly, making it 

easier for them to complete similar problems on 

their own (Arons 1997). 

 There is a great deal of history that is 

included in the textbook, for example selections 

from Galileo‟s Two New Sciences. This is not 

surprising knowing that Rutherford studied in the 



 

 

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History of Science Department at Harvard (Lange 

2005, 4). The history allows students to 

understand how ideas developed, as physicists 

tried to piece together many of the concepts that 

are now nearly common knowledge to the physics 

teacher. This is an opportunity to see physics as a 

human activity. In addition, the authors have 

included a time line, which neatly lays out the 

major historical events, and influential people of 

the times divided into six categories: government, 

science, philosophy, literature, art, and music. 

This allows students to get a better understanding 

of the events and influential figures of the time 

period in which various scientists were 

prominent.  

 In the student handbook, the authors boast 

it as the “guide to observations, experiments, 

activities, and explorations, far and wide, in the 

realms of physics” (Rutherford, Holton, & 

Watson 1970a, 4). The book urges that physics is 

not to be read, but to be experienced (Arons 1997, 

29). There are an extraordinary number of 

activities and the authors note, “you will need to 

pick and choose” (Rutherford, Holton, & Watson 

1970a, 4). However, despite the smattering of 

topics, the handbook retains consistency. The 

introduction also urges students to complete any 

activity of interest, even if their instructor does 

not specifically assign it to them. 

 The student readers were designed to 

provide the students with a variety of 

supplemental materials either to enrich the 

material in class, or to delve deeper into the 

physics. "For those seeking a deeper 

understanding of mechanics, [the authors] 

particularly recommend the article from the 

Feynman Lectures on Physics" (Rutherford, 

Holton, & Watson 1970b, 9). These lectures and 

the other articles that are considered for those 

seeking a deeper understanding are at a collegiate 

level, with some involving calculus. For those 

that may find reading lectures by Feynman 

daunting, there are many articles involving art, 

sports, and practical applications. Several of the 

articles were written by famous physicists. This 

gives, for example, Newton's explanation of 

dynamics. It affords students the opportunity to 

put themselves in the shoes of famous scientists 

and read how they describe concepts that may 

now be seen as elementary. Interestingly, there is 

a paper entitled Four Pieces of Advice to Young 

People by Warren Weaver (1966) giving students 

advice for their future, which opens with the 

author stating that he is aware that those reading 

this article will ignore his advice. This casual 

style makes this and many of the articles 

intriguing to read to students. These readers also 

made physics seem more accessible to students. 

  Among the staff of the Harvard Project 

Physics team were filmmakers. “There were films 

produced including an award winning film on the 

life of Enrico Fermi” (Lange 2005, 5).  The film 

entailing the life of Enrico Fermi is a phenomenal 

account of his life and research and includes 

interviews by other physicists and their 

relationship with Fermi. Another film, People and 

Particles, follows a research team that is studying 

particle physics. This film gives students a look 

into the life of scientists and also the scale of 

particle accelerators at the time. Without the 

foresight of the project, this footage would have 

never been captured. These films are another 

testament to the creators' dedication to the field of 

physics. 

 

Shortfalls and Strengths 

 The Harvard Project Physics course was 

without a doubt a successful curriculum with 

approximately "20% of all high school students 

taking Project Physics" (Holton 2003, 783) in the 

seventies. However, with the advances that have 

been made in physics education over the past 20 



 

 

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years, it is no longer the premier curriculum with 

projects like the Modeling curriculum (Wells, 

Hestenes, & Swackhamer 1995) starting to gain 

momentum. However, this does not mean that its 

components are not applicable and cannot be used 

to teach high school physics.  

 One of the biggest criticisms with 

Harvard Project Physics is that the materials 

often give the students the formulas and names 

prior to developing the concepts. Arons suggests 

the use of "operational definitions" (1997, 18) that 

are developed prior to the formulas and typical 

textbook definitions. An operational definition 

involves "describing the actions and operations 

one executes, at least in principle, to give these 

terms scientific meaning" (Arons 1997, 18). 

Students are encouraged to tell "stories" that 

describe the process for obtaining values for 

concepts like velocity (Arons 1997, 18). This is 

especially important "since the words [used in 

physics] are drawn from everyday speech, to 

which we give profoundly altered scientific 

meaning, only vaguely connected to the meaning 

in everyday speech" (Arons 1997, 18). The 

Harvard Project Physics materials develop 

operational definitions, but only after the 

formulas and formal definitions have been 

discussed. This is a weakness in the curriculum 

because physics terms are also found in the 

vernacular and "students remain unaware of the 

alteration unless it is pointed to explicitly many 

times-not just once" (Arons 1997, 18). This 

weakness could lead students into trouble and not 

properly address their preconceptions in 

kinematics and dynamics. 

In my experience, recently in education 

there has been a great push for literacy and the 

inclusion of real world examples in science 

courses. The Harvard Project Physics materials 

demonstrate how literacy and real world 

situations can be integrated into a physics course. 

The inclusion of the readers for each unit allow 

for copious amounts of readings related to 

physics, helping to foster the literacy that many 

schools are now attempting to incorporate in all 

disciplines. In addition, the overall majority of 

examples in the textbook are physical situations, 

most of which the average students would have 

had direct experience.  

The Harvard Project Physics materials do 

a phenomenal job of outlining the thinking held at 

various points in history. Before delving into 

Galileo's revolutionary ideas, the text describes 

medieval concepts. This is interesting because the 

development of science is not often discussed in 

history courses. The students will be familiar with 

the medieval time period, but this is a different 

take on the era. Aristotle and Galileo's ideas about 

motion are discussed in a concise manner that 

would not be difficult for the students to read in 

an evening. The sections on Aristotle and the 

medieval eras could easily be given during the 

unit. The remainder of the material should only be 

given after motion is understood and acceleration 

is discussed because Galileo proposed the concept 

of uniform acceleration. The incorporation of 

such materials helps to develop student's 

appreciation for the ever-evolving nature of 

science, instead of validating the idea that science 

is a static, solitary field, which, in my experience, 

is held by many students. 

 

Applicability to New York State Standards 

 When analyzing curricula, it is often 

useful to determine if the curricula align with 

state standards in the area.  Although the Harvard 

Project Physics materials were intended for 

teachers in any state to use, they will be compared 

with the New York State standards because of 

New York‟s clear standards for high school 

physics and because this is the state of greatest 

personal interest.   



 

 

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First, we will discuss the historical aspect. 

The beginning of the Physics Core Curriculum 

states that students should have an appreciation 

for the developments made throughout history 

(NYS, 2005, p. 4). This is easily met by the 

Harvard Project Physics materials. The materials, 

in particular the textbook, guide students through 

the beliefs of society at various points, and 

explain concepts from diverse perspectives. An 

example of this is motion being explained in 

Aristotelian, Galilean, and finally Newtonian 

point-of-views. This will help the students to 

understand the thoughts held at various points in 

history and have a sense of how these ideas 

progressed. Additionally, this will help to foster 

scientific literacy, because the materials address 

some marks of scientific literacy proposed by 

Arons (1997).  

 The original Harvard Project Physics 

materials would prepare students for end of year 

exams, the Regents in New York State. However, 

with the advances that have been made in physics 

education research, there are recent curriculums 

that have proven to be more successful in the 

preparation of students (Jackson, Dukerich and 

Hestenes 2008).  Since one of the aims of 

Harvard Project Physics was for the materials to 

be easily adapted by each teacher, the materials 

are suited to enhance recent curricula. An effort 

has been made to incorporate the Harvard Project 

Physics materials with the Modeling Curriculum 

from Arizona State University (Lindley 2010). 

This combination enables the instructor to take 

what the Harvard Project Physics materials did 

best and integrate them into leading physics 

education research to give students the best 

possible education. Any combination that 

incorporates Harvard Project Physics materials 

will effectively prepare students and give them a 

more rounded view of science as a field. 

 

Conclusion 

 Harvard Project Physics was a curricular 

masterpiece. It was the first commercially 

produced and widely distributed curriculum that 

successfully incorporated history and real-world 

situations with physics. The additional readings 

help to develop literacy within science 

classrooms. Additionally, the creators 

implemented workshops to help educators 

develop the necessary skills not only to use the 

materials, but also to effectively educate students.  

This training is essential if the teachers are to 

maximize the materials effectiveness in their 

classrooms. This model of training workshops has 

since been adopted by other curriculum 

developers (Jackson, Dukerich and Hestenes 

2008).  Having personally attended several of 

these workshops, they are invaluable and the 

curricular materials would be nowhere near as 

successful without them. By creating the 

workshops, the Harvard Project Physics team 

sought to make their curriculum as successful as 

possible. The forethought of Dr. Rutherford and 

his colleagues to hold such workshops is yet 

another testament to their dedication to creating a 

successful physics curriculum.  

  Harvard Project Physics gave students an 

added appreciation for the development of 

science. It is a course that altered how all future 

science curricula would be developed. Harvard 

Project Physics’ applicability to today is a 

testament to the authors‟ dedication to the field of 

physics education. 

 

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Physics. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 

 Inc.  



 

 

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Holton, G. 2003. “The Project Physics Course, 

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(2008): 10-17. 

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