Last and Least! Here we go! I apologize for not posting sooner. I arrived home from Seattle at 1am and by 8am I was attending faculty meetings to prepare for the new semester. As October winds down, I feel like I may finally have caught up enough in life to post on here.
Here it is. My Congress submission. I focused on FORMS of energy (I think). A little about me first.
With historical footnotes aside, here is my gig at the University of New England.
In the College Physics I and II classes, we spend a few weeks considering energy. At UNE, we have focused on energy pies. While the conversation begins with a general consideration of five forms of energy (kinetic, gravitational, elastic, thermal, and chemical), we tend to have the aim of getting to conservation of energy calculations. The simple Ek=Eg, find the velocity of the ball if it falls from 10m, kind of problem. I'm beginning to lose interest in that and I am more interested in developing energy diagrams as a tool for "thinking about physics scenarios" rather than necessarily computing boring, non-very-real scenarios. Here are some of my research interests.
I found myself quite interested in three particular scenarios from Energy I: 1) lowering and lifting a bowling bowl, 2) the melting bird bath, and 3) the Gaussian Gun. In the first one, my interest is the conversation the teachers had about chemical energy, the use of ATP, and perceived differences between lifting and lowering a ball.
Note, I give the name of the video on the setup powerpoint slides. If you want to watch a subtitled version of any of the following videos, you can find them in the E1 movie folder on the SPU server.
Thermal and chemical energy are both challenging entities to consider, and I appreciate the conversation this group is having as they try to flesh out the different components. I particularly enjoy to see when students/teachers/anyone hit a wall with a particular model or diagram and they need to evolve beyond it. Here, this group found that by confining themselves to 8 energy units for both of their pictures, they were unable to effectively compare the two scenarios. When a model fails, and the creators catch on to what isn't working, I think that is when true deciphering happens.
The second example is the bird bath. This one gets into the sticky situation of dis-entangling thermal and kinetic energy...or possibly realizing that they are one and the same at a certain level.
As I mentioned on my powerpoint slide, this one gets exciting when folks start to catch onto Krista's idea about a convection current. Maybe this is severely over-complicating the scenario. Why add in that next level of complexity when the previous levels have not been fully understood. Yet...what a fascinating insight. This is totally something to come back to and dig into further. Maybe this could lead into finding some new, rich energy examples, one's that look at heat transfer and "motion of energy" in an environment that isn't so linear. I see a lot of potential here.
Lastly, the Gaussian Gun. First off, it's cool. I can't help but get excited about it. But honestly, the most captivating part for me was the lead in to discussing exothermic and endothermic reactions. Particularly, the exo- examples of combustion and respiration.
In this video, Emma and John particularly are trying to grapple with a physical picture of what is happening with gun / combustion example. Emma has many questions, and John tries to answer them, although he admits that he's simple trying to figure it out himself as he talks. Lots of noises and hand gestures here. In hindsight, I'm less interested in this video that I was when I first started studying it. The first two I posted on here might be richer.
Finally, wrapping up:
The program afforded me a wonderful opportunity to try something new and to meet a lot of fantastic people. I'm also thinking much more about "what is the best way to teach energy." A week ago, I finished the first energy unit in my General Physics I class. I completed it the same way I did the previous few years. But in another two weeks, I am revisiting energy. At that point, I intend to utilize all three examples from my Congress interests. I am most excited about the Gaussian Gun, but I think all three have the possibility to be long and fruitful discussions in class. I'll give each of these problems to my groups of 3 that I have in my combined lab/lecture environment. I don't think I'll do energy theater this year, but possibly energy cubes and the diagrammatic tool Rachel and Abby reported on in a recent paper. I also want to have my class look at a few of the different energy metaphors, just so they can acknowledge that there are different ways of talking about and diagramming energy, and each has strengths and weaknesses.
If you made it all the way through, thanks for reading!
Namaste,
Brad
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