I think this confusion is the result of an interesting aspect of Energy Theater: Energy is hard to understand primarily because it is nonmaterial. By representing energy as a material substance (specifically by having people "embody" certain amounts of energy), things that actually are material substances (in this case, electrons) are not represented physically! Since we were walking around the circuit, gesturing with our hands to signify "electrical energy", it was easier for us to begin to think that we were electrons that possessed electrical energy, rather than that we were energy in a particular form.
I really liked the idea of the student called "Leah" (do you all typically use their real first names?) who suggests that the group stand within a loop of string that would represent the electron; when people/energy packets left the loop, that would represent that electron losing energy. To me that does (as the student says) solve the matter/energy problem--it becomes easier to see that the electron has its own existence outside of the electrical energy associated with it, and that the electrons don't disappear when the energy is transferred to the filament. I think if my group had thought of that, it would have made a lot more sense to me.
The authors of the article remind us that in Energy Theater, "Motion of objects is supposed to be indicated by including kinetic energy in the area designated for that object, not by displacing the rope that bounds the object-area within the representation space." I am having a hard time picturing what this would look like though. This instruction asks us to make the invisible visible (people represent energy) and the visible invisible (objects are shown to be moving only indirectly, by the expression of kinetic energy.) I am curious about how different learners represent and understand kinetic energy associated with moving objects, and how well different solutions in Energy Theater allow learners to understand their models.
The authors say that "Energy Theater – a material representation that uses the metaphor of energy as a substance – contributed to the disambiguation of matter and energy for these participants...The activity of developing an Energy Theater enactment for this scenario caused the group to grapple with the distinctions between matter and energy, and to invent enactments that illustrated these distinction". In my own experience, it was reflecting on the "rules" of the theater, particularly that each person represents energy, that reminded us to make a distinction between electrons and electrical energy.
Still, I admit that I'm not sure I understand Toni's comment at the end of the exchange: "And because you still have energy maintained in the matter, we’re getting hung up on the matter representation, and what we did was pure energy. Not all the potential is realized." Is Toni saying, Don't worry about the matter, we're supposed to be doing energy? But they are representing some pieces of matter--the bulb, the filament, the socket. Is there a good reason why these parts are represented, while others are not? I suppose that if you are representing electrons along with electrical energy, why not represent air molecules along with thermal energy? Since we don't know energy is there aside from its effects on matter, it does seem natural that we want to include, indeed focus, on matter rather than energy in our representations.
I was discussing my upcoming trip to Seattle with a friend, and she said, you know, energy can be a hard concept to grasp. Aha! Even our metaphors for UNDERSTANDING have to do with interacting with a material substance! The matter/energy problem is one I struggle with in my own biology classroom, and I am looking forward to learning more about how learners may come to understand and resolve it!
No comments:
Post a Comment