I'm not actually sure how important the context is for this video, so I'll be brief. The participants have used Energy Theater, Energy Cubes, and Energy Tracking Diagrams for the ring slider scenario. As a group, they are discussing the differences between the three different representations. Then Joe pipes up and asks an oh-so-insightful question:
Episode title: E1 120807 1531 T1 i'm just curious
Transcript: [00:00:00.00] Joe: Can I ask a question about how accurate these representations are? Like in terms of how real energy interactions happen in the world? Is it, is it as systematic and step-driven as we are making it, or is it a little bit...
Teacher on screen (can't tell who): Chaotic?
[00:00:17.02] Joe: ...you know what I mean? Like, we're all saying, first it's here, then stage 2, these three become this and these four, or is it just. Is it easier to measure a net at the beginning and the end and we just kind of assume the middle that happened at some point? Does that make sense? Like is it, are we abstracting further than is useful as a real scientific tool?
[00:00:41.20] Lane: You mean are we assigning more meaning to what the energy does than the energy actually assigns?
Joe: I guess so, more meaning or more, yeah, more specificity than we actually know how to measure. Like how abstract is this?
Lane: I think a good question is...
Desi: That is a good question.
[00:00:57.06] Lane: ...um, or a related question is, can I, can we really track energy pathways?
Sue: The moment when it turns from one to the other or something like that?
Lane: Yeah. Cause like the extreme of that would be to say, you know, this pen (drops pen) is falling and just before it hits the ground, it's got some kinetic energy.
[00:01:21.15] Don (?): The way you measure that is with the temperature. Because temperature is the measure of the kinetic energy inside of the system, so when you measure the change in temperature, you are measuring a teeny...
Lane: No, I agree with that, a question I wanna raise is if we really can track units of energy...
Jenna: This is conceptual, though.
Lane: ...in a totally rigorous way, then for the rest of the life of the universe, I should be able to know where to energy of this pen went. Who knows, it spreads out to all sorts of different places. And I, I'm kinda agnostic on that. I'm not sure if we can or not.
[00:02:06.28] Bryan (?): Do you think we can? I mean, don't we use it to explain stuff? (Inaudible)
?: With a spring, you can measure the potential energy [fully cocked, you can do down a little bit (inaudible) and you can turn that (inaudible) so you could] theoretically know that potential energy is going to be converted into kinetic, and you could stepwise, you know, after a while you get bored with it...so you could assume that it would be (inaudible).
Jenna: [If we could, why do we have an energy issue then? You know, if we could actually know how much was created from (?).]
[00:02:46.00] Woman off screen: But how did you know, like once you dropped the pen and it hits the floor and there's some thermal energy, how did you know that some of the thermal energy in the room was from the pen and not from our bodies? You know, like once it's thermal, like how do you know that?
Don (?): You measure [that micro] difference in the temperature of the pen here and there it's so miniscule I don't know how to find it.
Desi (?): [Change from the pen.]
[00:03:08.06] Lane: (Radio cause each one?) Yeah, I mean, I'm wrestling with the question. I think we can measure it, we know it's all somewhere, right, but, you know, a hundred years from now, is the particular energy that was in this pen now in China? Right, or is it somewhere out near Pluto? I'm not sure that those end up being meaningful questions. Um, I just don't know.
[00:03:40.11] Joe: So it's not [necessarily useful as an exercise in accurately tracking] units of measurement throughout an energy event as much as a way to represent conservation of energy throughout an energy happening, do you know what I mean, right? So like we're using units. The big take away from that would be, look, they're the same number of units, not that there's a direct correlation between one of them becoming this and one of them becoming this and this kind.
Desi (?): [I think they're meaningful questions, but not (answerable?).]
[00:04:12.08] Adam: I think, too, I don't think we're abstracting too much because I think we're all naturally doing this, and it's by the force us to have person (inaudible) I've noticed today versus yesterday with the diagrams is that we're asking questions about how it is transferred in a different, more visual. And we're actually talking to each other more about the very specific way: does it turn to this first or does it go to this? And this group's saying, you know, it has to be a certain type of energy before it becomes thermal energy. It's like, augh! And then also the complexity's there that we might not have seen, so it's like, I agree, like at what point do we stop?
[00:04:59.05] Joe: Well, no, I'm actually not even arguing about that. I think this is all really valuable. I'm wondering if it's valuable as an exercise in questioning and thinking, or is it valuable as a realistic model of what's happening with energy. I think it's valuable regardless. I'm just wondering, the conversation we're having about 'oh wait, first it has to do that and then this,' only good in terms of our brains and thinking about science and thinking critically, or are these things we're saying actually true? Does it have to do this? Do we know the answers to these questions? And that's sort of the end of my knowledge, so I was just kind of asking honestly, do we know that?
[00:05:37.04] Lane: I'm optimistic, Joe, that later, before two weeks are up, we will have some really good debates about energy pathways, and I think that will. Not debates in the abstract, debates in the specific. And that will sort of give us [a chance to really] hash it out some more.
Vicki (to table): [(Laughing) He wants to know now.]
Joe: Yeah, I really am just curious.
Commentary: I clipped this because I got so excited about Joe's question. I interpreted him to be asking, "Are these representations solely pedagogical tools, or do they help us to understand real energy processes better?" Another way of saying this might be, "Would scientists use ETDs to figure things out about energy?" I think Lane was answering the question, "Is energy track-able?," which seems related to Joe's question, but I'm not sure Joe interpreted it that way.
And I'm impressed that he's willing to roll with the punches regardless, he just wants to know what it is that he's doing. And I'm just plain impressed with the consistent meta-reflecting I see him doing consistently.
Thank you for clipping this. I was in the room when Joe asked this question and was similarly blown away by the deepness and all around awesomeness of Joe's question. I'm glad I get to take a second look at the exchange.
ReplyDeleteI can imagine sort of three levels on which ET could exist:
1) as an accurate description of what happens in nature.
2) as a model that professional scientists might use think about nature.
3) as a purely pedagogical model used for teaching.
I feel like Joe was asking whether ET was 1) or 3). I feel like Lane's response was in some ways differentiating between 1) and 2) but never saying so explicitly. If Joe doesn't, on his own, differentiate between 1) and 2) then Lane's response may have felt very unsatisfying.
Alex, your categorization is really useful for me! For me, ET is (2), and I want teachers to know that for me it is (2) so that when they use it for teaching they won't feel like they are teaching their students something "wrong" (which I think is the concern inherent in (3).) I think (1) is a metaphysical matter.
ReplyDeleteLike Rachel, I think of (1) as metaphysical.
DeleteI was originally thinking that ET was a combo of (2) and (3), both pedagogically and a model, but after Rachel's post, I am much more thinking that it is (2), a model, or representational tool, that anyone can use, scientists or non-scientists.