Group A readings

Reflection on " Representing energy. I. Representing a substance ontology for energy"

I would like to apologize in advance for my writing and ask for some patient. My name is Carolina Alvarado, and this is not my native language but I am trying my best to explain my self as clear as I can. Before starting the analysis I would like to introduce me a little more with you. I am a grad student in Tecnologico de Monterrey, Campus Monterrey (in Mexico), working with Dr. Genaro Zavala. I am currently at SPU collaborating with the Energy Project group for six months.

It was two summers ago (2011) when I met Rachel Scherr. She was invited to give a workshop in my university for physics and mathematics teachers. The workshop consisted in an introduction of how to use video recording to analyze students conceptions. The sessions were not focused on the analysis of energy, but the tapes she brought to the sessions were related with energy.

While I was reading the article I started to recognize some of the scenarios. Then I realized some (or most) of them were presented during the workshop. I worked  with Pablo (a grad student colleague  on the scenario of "Leaves blowing in the street...". During the activity we were encouraged to analyze the data in the way we thought was convenient. We were not previously introduced to the energy ontology, and neither Pablo or me were familiarized with PER literature on energy (our dissertations are not related with energy). After watching the video a couple of times, we decided on focus our analysis on how the students referred to the energy in this scenario. We made a presentation were we show the attributes students were giving to the energy involved in the movement of the leaves while blowing in the street. Now that I read the article, I noticed we were actually referring to the different energy ontology can have.In a way this helped me to build on my research confidence: It made me feel like I have that something that helps to start a research.

Getting to know the ontology of energy, after having that first encounter with its implications, helped me to understand the relevance of it. In the exemplifications given in the article we can observe how the students goes from one ontology to the other. While trying to understand energy as a substance, they use different ontology at the same time, going back and forth. How can you try to understand energy while you can not define how to talk about it?

Reading this first papers allows you to considerate the implication of using each kind of energy ontology. Also, the research considerates the facilities and complications to use different representations in a classroom environment. This first paper definitely facilitates to understand why did the Energy Project came up with a new model to represent energy transfer and transformations. It is in "Representing energy. II. Energy tracking representations" where we get to know the details of energy tracking through embodiment, creative diagrams and use of cubes. I consider that establishing the properties of energy as a substance (instead of changing ontology during the analysis) helps to eliminate certain uncertainty on how to "talk" about energy. As it has advantages (comparing to other representations) it also has limitations. For purposes of conservation of energy and tracking how energy transforms and transfers I consider the strategies proposed in this research are very convenient.

I am really excited to participate in the I-RISE and get to work with new colleagues to develop my skills as a researchers.