"The Aluminum Foil Attracts Heat": Student Nonnormative Ideas About Energy Transformation

• In Event: Poster Session 7
  In Poster Session: Learning Sciences SIG Poster Session

Abstract

Through previous research, we have found that students often have non-normative ideas about energy being attracted to certain types of materials. While matter can reflect and absorb energy, matter cannot attract energy. This study reports on student justifications for decisions as they design, build and test a solar oven. Students express multiple, often contradictory ideas about matter and energy. We draw on student explanations of how a solar oven works to characterize students’ thinking about attraction. We find that many students think “attraction” is a pre-requisite step to reflection or absorption. We discuss ways to refine the curriculum to help students distinguish between ideas about how solar radiation interacts with materials in a solar oven to produce heat.

Authors

• Beth McBride, University of California - Berkeley

• Eliane Stampfer Wiese, University of California, Berkeley

• Marcia Linn, University of California - Berkeley