Teaching and Learning of Energy in K-12 Education

Abstract

As mentioned by the editors of this volume, the included chapters are the product of an international energy summit held at Michigan State University in December 2013, which was aiming to get a better sense of what the research community knows about energy as a crosscutting concept and how to communicate this knowledge in kindergarten through secondary schools. Participants included scientists, science educators, science education researchers and teachers. The chapters are organized in four parts (‘‘What should students know about energy’’; ‘‘What does the research say about the teaching and learning about energy’’; Challenges associated with the teaching and learning of energy’’; and ‘‘Opportunities and approaches for teaching and learning about energy’’). The common characteristic among these chapters is that they refer to the new Framework for K-12 Science Education, which was prepared by the NRC, and as a consequence, their mainly developmental approach is related to the teaching of the concept in the USA and the countries that are directly or indirectly influenced by this particular framework. However, this certainly does not mean that the international community would lack interest for the content of the book. When I was invited to review this book, I accepted with pleasure since I had the chance to get involved in a discussion that I personally trail for the last 30 years, since the time that my first paper was published (shared with A. Tiberghien, Emeritus Research Director at CNRS) regarding the teaching of energy as perceived from the European continental research tradition of science education. The late 1970s and the 1980s were the golden age for energy teaching, as many innovative teaching programs appeared; they were serving the social needs of the time and going beyond the traditional, fragmented approach of teaching the concept. I could mention three exceptional, in my belief, programs that had energy as the organizational principle of the relevant syllabus: the ‘Energy’ program (Haber-Schaim) taught in the USA, and the European ‘Libres Parcours’ (Agabra et al.) and ‘Neue Physik, Das