I've not thought seriously about physics since I finished my Ph.D. in biophysics in 1997. But now I think often about how to get back into studying physics. Not the physics of graduate school requirements, but the physics of everyday life. Doesn't it make sense to get students to tie their learning to what they encounter in their own worlds? Of course, the world is much bigger than what's in our faces and immediately under our feet. But it's in the way buildings stand, water freezes and boils, and how insects fly that are the hints to the deepest stuff we know. Like Lex Luthor quipped: "Some people can read War and Peace and come away thinking it's a simple adventure story. Others can read the ingredients on a chewing gum wrapper and unlock the secrets of the universe."

To find out whether there's been much work put into designing curriculum based on everyday life, I will look at references such as:

• How Things Work: The Physics of Everyday Life: Louis A. Bloomfield: Books
• the chapter "Popular culture and critical pedagogy: Everyday life as a basis for curriculum knowledge" in Critical Pedagogy, the State, and and Cultural Struggle