1. Alternative Frameworks selective truth?
Energy
By Phil Snell

2. Outcomes
By the end of this session you should have:-
Identified some common misconceptions in ideas surrounding Energy
Used concept cartoons as a method of exploring alternative frameworks
Considered conservation of Energy and Sankey diagrams.

3. Starter –Consider the following statements from children in Key Stage 2
“The lamp uses up energy”
“The battery loses energy when it runs down”
“I need to sleep to get my energy back”
“I need to go for a run after eating all those chips”
“When I run around I gain energy”

4. STARTER Activity - Concepts
What is a concept ?
What makes a concept valid ?
Is there a historical continuum of development in scientific ideas ?
Is there a continuum of development in children's ideas ?
At what stage should concepts be refined?

5. Why Energy?
Energy is a Key concept, a powerful and unifying abstract idea which is difficult to define.
Energy allows us to keep track of change.
Need to understand conservation of resources through simple model of energy transfer.
Introduced first in Key stage 3 (Age 11), but preceded by everyday contexts and usage, which require analysis and development.

6. Looking at children’s responses
Make your own responses first
Assess children’s responses
Discuss differences and try to think of reasons for them. How did they arise?
Consider ways of exploring these differences with children – to produce progression.

7. Misconceptions ?

8. What is a concept cartoon? Why do concept cartoons work?
They help make learners’ ideas explicit
They challenge and develop learners’ ideas
They apply scientific ideas in everyday situations
They promote discussion
For more able pupils they can provide cognitive conflict which helps to clarify ideas
They help legitimise alternative viewpoints – reduce the threat of giving the ‘wrong’ answer

9. Cartoons for Concepts (Use H/O 5.3)
Two websites with information on Concept Cartoons – see next Slides

10. Is it all Moonshine? What is a (concept) cartoon?
How can they be used in the classroom?

11. Snowman

12. Bungy jump

13. Shadows
                                       
                                                     

14. Floating –getting into deep water

15. Moonshine
Pyramus
“Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams;”

16. Getting a Complex?
What’s wrong with the picture?

17. Can you find a rationale for each viewpoint?
It is crucial to the success of further development that we explore the rationale offered for each viewpoint expressed; both those that are apparently correct and those that are apparently incorrect.

18. Alternative Frameworks
A ‘mis’conception is simple to deal with, if it involves a mistake in a mutually accepted view of reality.
A more serious difficulty may arise where two conflicting views are held, stemming from alternative frameworks, each valid within its own limitations.
This can present an intractable problem in achieving progression in thinking.

19. Energy as “shape-shifter” a “rainabowasequaenceaofaforms”
Energy is transferred:-
From A to B by (form of energy)
From battery to bulb by electricity
From bulb to surroundings by heat and light
(Write your own)
Energy transformation:-
Form A is transformed into Form B in/by place/process
Chemical energy in the battery is transformed into electrical energy in the wires
and then to light energy and heat in the bulb
Light energy from the sun is transformed into chemical energy in the leaf by photosynthesis

20. Richard Feynman … but what is energy?!
‘… there is a certain quantity, which we call energy, that does not change in all the manifold changes which nature undergoes.
That is a most abstract idea, because it is a mathematical principle: it says that there is a numerical quantity, which does not change when something happens. It is not a description of a mechanism, or anything concrete: it is just a strange fact that we can calculate some number and when we finish watching nature go through her tricks and calculate that number again it is the same.’

21. One more brick in the Wall

22. Money as an analogy
Source: Primary School Teachers’ and Science project 1991 – Pack 2 Understanding Energy, published by Oxford University Department of Educational Studies and Westminster College Oxford ISBN

23. Matthew Henry Phineas Riall Sankey – diagrams
Electrical energy
Heat energy

24. Steam engine illustrated by Sankey
From Wikipedia

25. Sankey Software available with a free download of a trial version
GCSE Bitesize – Sankey diagrams for Energy flow

26. The Magic and Mystery of Perceiving Do you see. What you think you see
The Magic and Mystery of Perceiving Do you see? What you think you see? What you want to see? What you ought to see? What others see? The truth? In reality? 

27. The End