ATP: An electrical impulse thing and a little zap

This is more on the theme of “getting hot while dropping your balls.”  As a refresher, in E1 on Monday morning (8/12/13), the class began the day by drawing diagrams for the two scenarios considered the previous Friday: raising a bowling ball at constant velocity and lowering the ball at constant velocity.  The group I am considering in this episode is: Jeff (in blue), John, Sara (in green), and Emma.  In the first half hour of class, they drew a diagram representing the energy theater.

Their diagram includes instances of chemical energy converting to thermal energy, and they recognize this as a process that includes ATP, but they do not know how to account for it.  Now that they have finished, Adam comes to the table to check on them and see how they are doing.  What follows is a discussion regarding what they think about the scenarios they have just looked at. 

I love that each member of the group had a chance to weigh in on the matter, even Sara who is typically rather quiet.  To each of them, the processes involved in going from chemical energy (ATP) to muscle movement to thermal energy, are a mystery, and each of them has a different way of expressing their befuddlement.  Jeff at 0:13 says “I need to scratch my head and go wow.”  John, at 1:13, adds “It gets super fancy, which I don’t even want to get into.”  Even one of the instructors, Adam, can’t hold back his relationship with biology at 1:25.  “I’m a physics guy, so when I hear ATP I kind go…” and he apparently makes a face or a twitch or something. 

At 2:14, Sara enters in and continues off of John’s wonderment at “an electrical impulse thing” and “a little zap that we’re not accounting for.”  She wants to keep separate the energy story and the processes of ATP.  “The electrical is part of the chemical.”  She sees that for kids, it wouldn't make sense to have chemical go to electrical and so on.  Emma fleshes this out with a long montage of chemical to electrical to new chemical to new electrical.  Without even knowing the exact process, she sees the weaving that might happen.  “Having a separate story, I think, is a good thing,” she adds at the end.

Finally, at 2:54 Sara suggests, “I don’t think understanding this way is a misconception.”  This is an interesting way to phrase her idea.  I wonder how she thinks of physics and biology misconceptions.  Beyond that, what is clear to me here is that all four teachers agree that energy theater shouldn't (and maybe even can’t) address all of the steps that may exist as chemical energy transforms to thermal. 

“If you don’t understand where the energy comes from, call it chemical.”  This is quite common in physics.  I certainly do this in my classes with the simple examples I use that might need such a designation, such as a car driving or a person pushing an object.  Honestly, I've rarely made an attempt to develop a picture that is deeper than this.  It is fascinating to watch a group of people attempt to dig at this deeper picture and essentially come up baffled and prepared to stick with “chemical to thermal, let’s move on.”  I wonder if this might be a valuable class exercise for my students.  Let them struggle to build a more complex picture, to give them a greater appreciation for hiding some details in their energy representation.

Full video: E1 130812 0814 T6-1