S.C.R.E.A.M.

In UE2 this morning, Meg said she has something specific she wants to learn this week.  She was given this acronym for different forms of energy, SCREAM, for Sound-Chemical-Radiant-Electrical-Atomic-Motion.  Her question is:  Where is solar energy?  Is light and heat energy, which she had been told belong under "radiant"?  Is solar energy something other than light and heat together?  What about other forms of energy that don't seem to be on this list -- are they secretly on there somewhere?  How?  We were in a small group discussion together at that point, and she asked me directly.  "Where is solar energy on this list?"

I had the pleasure of responding completely honestly (and I think in sort of a gush) that we, the Energy Project team with our physics PhDs and so on, were actually obsessing on this very issue ourselves, and that watching the video of them (or people like them) discussing forms of energy had really challenged us to figure out our own answers to these questions.  And that we did not have answers for ourselves yet.  And how great that we have this shared obsession, because we really want to keep talking about it.  I rephrased the issue as being how we categorize forms of energy, on what basis make lists of forms, whether and when it's legitimate to invent a new name ever.  She (and the others at the table) seemed friendly to my identifying the larger issue in her specific question.  Our conversation was interrupted by a change of activity, which was fine with me, it felt like an opener.