Science Teacher Training
in an Information Society
Teaching about energy
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Science Teacher Training
in an Information Society |
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Workshop 1
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StoriesA I think that pupils would find it difficult to understand the idea that energy is always the same kind of stuff, and that is just moves from one place to another. This is a very abstract idea, and this is not the way it looks to them at all. When something is hot this seems to be a very different kind of energy than when something is moving. I think that this energy transfer approach in the National Curriculum is not really appropriate at school level.
B I think that ‘energy transfer’ is an easier term for young pupils to understand than ‘energy transformation’. Pupils find it easier to say that one form of energy is transferred into another than to say that it is transformed – they are more familiar with the word. So I guess that is why the people who wrote the National Curriculum chose to use this word.
C It depends really on the age of the pupil and what they are studying. For younger pupils, I think that identifying different ‘forms of energy’ is probably the best way of introducing the concept to them. It gives them some ‘concrete’ ideas that they can grasp, so that they can learn more abstract ideas later. Energy transfers make more sense with older pupils, when they are looking at waves, for example, or at macroscopic changes involving particles.
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