Energy is considered an indispensable tool for describing and understanding the world around us.  Yet students graduate from high school unable to use energy to describe or explain everyday chemical phenomena.  Students are confused by contradictory notions such as �chemical bonds as storehouses of energy� (high energy phosphate bond in ATP) and �bond dissociation energy�.  From standard potential energy diagrams, they are left with the impression that only exothermic reactions can be spontaneous.In the approach developed in Modeling Instruction in high school physics and chemistry, students are not confronted with a bewildering array of different �forms of energy.�   Instead they learn that there is only one kind of energy but many ways it can be stored and transferred. Students learn tools to represent qualitative energy interactions analysis in terms of macroscopic and microscopic changes in the system and surroundings. Then, when they encounter the quantitative treatment of heat and energy, the ideas of energy transfer should be relatively straightforward.In this session participants will practice representing the storage and transfer of energy in a variety of situations students commonly encounter in chemistry and will discuss implications of the use of this approach.

Energy: Going beyond the potential energy diagrams

247th National Meeting (2014)

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