The CMU class is for freshmen, so students without advanced background can still comprehend most of it. But for physics I feel that without at least some good physics and math background, you can't really understand and appreciate the "great ideas".
If the students know the core concepts and mechanics of Calculus and Linear Algebra, which is entirely possible for high school students in certain parts of the world, it's possible to teach a lot of core physics ideas with simple models.
In fact, in my undergrad, the Physics lab and theory courses were flipped - you look the lab course before the theory course. In the lab course you used simple maths and simple experimental setups to probe phenomena in mechanics, thermodynamics, electromagnetism, optics etc. Doing experiments/observations in astronomy, quantum mechanics are also possible at that level.
