a. What is the interesting phenomenon that you’re going to explain? What is/are the observational experiment(s)? If relevant, how does the thing you’re going to investigate contradict prior understanding of physics? In other words, WHY is there something that needs explaining? WHY is it interesting?
b. What are the different ways we might explain the phenomenon that you’re investigating? If this is a well-understood piece of physics (like gyroscopic precession) then this will be more an in depth look at different ways of explaining the phenomenon and focused on both requisite background knowledge as well as building the explanations and weaving them together to create deeper understanding. If it is a topic on the frontier of physics like the expanding universe, you should focus more on the possible explanations that have been proposed so far. Both approaches will need you to read background literature and learn about the phenomenon you’re going to teach the class about.
c. What are the testing experiments? This could be either ways of demonstrating how the explanation makes sense (gyroscopic precession) or current and/or proposed testing experiments (expanding universe). Note: If you’re discussing known physics, this section should be low focus and you should spend more time and focus on the applications (section d. below). If you’re doing a topic on the frontier of physics your focus should be on section c. here.
d. What are the real-life applications of the phenomenon? This is more applicable to known physics topics like gyroscopic precession. Show us how the physics phenomenon you’re explaining is useful and applicable in every-day life. Be specific, go into detail! This section should not be your focus if you’re presenting a topic like the accelerating expansion of the universe.