A broad look at the energy curriculum

I presented an invited talk to the AAPT conference, August 1, 2011, 2:00PM - 2:30PM (part of a larger panel). I argued that it is too simplistic to present physics as merely the 'fundamental' concepts to be learned before learning about energy technology; that there are many approaches to energy education.

Title

A Broad Look at the Energy Curriculum

Description

Having consulted a broad sweep of educators teaching about energy for several years for EnergyTeachers.org, Mr. Reeves will comment on the integration of energy curriculum into the physics curriculum as well as the possibility of energy becoming its own field to rival the importance of physics. Learning new and even traditional energy concepts presents a challenge in the world of standardized or traditional curriculum, especially concerning sequence and rigor. Textbooks, professional development, lesson plans, field experiences, workforce training, and academic pathways need to be developed further. The content and structure of EnergyTeachers.org represents the wide range of answers to such challenges for K-16 and informal educators, but there is much work to be done. What role will physics educators have in this work?

http://www.aapt.org/Conferences/sm2011/sessionpanel.cfm

Energy as its own field

Building science coming into its own.

Building science, up to now, was taught as basic science concepts applicable to buildings, but now is so complex that it's its own field in every right.

Photovoltaics are complex enough to warrant their own courses, from installer training to PhD dissertations.

Researchers from many different fields are studying photovoltaics, from biotech people creating viruses to build PV cells to metallurgists refining reflective substrates.

Anemometry is not only important to wind power siting, it's important for studying Earth's climate and the atmospheres of other planets.

Energy and other fields

Energy topics are becoming important in many fields, like architecture, chemistry, civil engineering, planning, economics, and political science.

Energy in physics education

Diverse energy courses and texts

Taught by physics teachers to non-majors.

For example, UNL's (Roger Fuller et al.) Energy in Perspective, 1975 to 1997.

My Father's Watch

Energy has been a theme for physics texts and courses for non-scientists. Many have attributed this association to the public interest in energy crises.

It is interesting to compare a physics book with a concentration on energy, with an energy book with a smattering of physics. The former, if written to satisfy my pedagogical needs like My Father's Watch is, teaches the reader something about the philosophy of physics, for example the lessons of the quest to unify the forces in the 19th century.

Taught by physics teachers for majors

This is very rare. It was tried for a few years in the aughties by Michigan State U.

Preparation for energy careers

How much responsibility do physics educators and their courses bear for the career outcomes of students seeking or ending up working in the energy sector? Consider the scope of industries and commerce involved in energy production and use: Building, maintenance, research, policy, transportation, military logistics, electronics, measuring...How well are current courses preparing students? What is the path to becoming the engineer who improves automobile efficiency? Is that engineer merely knowledgeable of the phenomena of rolling resistance, combustion timing, catalytic conversion, and weight reduction, or does she also need to know something about complex systems and trade-offs? How much does she have to understand about anthropogenic climate change to be sufficiently encouraged to help reduce fossil fuel use?

When a high school senior is preparing for a job in residential energy improvements, should she learn about thermal conductivity measurements and calculations from her physics teacher, her tech teacher, or both?

An interesting topic

In energy texts, physics is always relegated to a prerequisite role, a mistake considering how arguably the most important concept in the history of physics had many of it's most important episodes in technical pursuits (Joule etc.). Instead of being presented as something that always existed in present form, physics should be taught as something discovered and developed, interweaved with our discovery and development of energy resources and uses. Some of our most fundamental philosophical views were developed in technological labs like Joule's.

Energy is more than an interesting application of physics

Architecture is an interesting application of physics, like energy, but architecture is not as important to the culture of physics as energy is.

Energy as examples for current curriculum, or part of a new curriculum?

In 'Adding a bit more history to science courses,'(The Physics Teacher v. 49 May 2011 pp. 282,283) William DeBuvitz begins to bridge two philosophies of the value of history in a physics course. The more naive philosophy is merely to pepper an existing course with stories of physicists. Such a treatment is a disservice for at least two reasons. It whittles the complexities of history to biographies of idealized, individualized actors, and it doesn't present the limits and controversies of historical interpretation. A more productive, intellectual philosophy might be to have students engage in historical research and/or argumentation.

A similar dichotomy may be applied to energy curriculum:Are we using energy to teach the same old curriculum, or are we willing to move our curriculum in new directions led by research in energy and society's plans for energy science and industry?

We physics teachers are teaching energy for non-physicists, and we're teaching very specialized, advanced courses in nuclear energy and PV, but are we teaching anything in between? I.e. is there a path to energy science that with multiple exit points?

Physicism

It's hard to find a teacher of environmental science who doesn't promote an environmentalist attitude—the idea that the environment is at times resilient, at times fragile; that ecological balance and diversity can be upset by humans or invasive species or changes in the physical world; that every student can become an activist by identifying and working to change behaviors to protect or rehabilitate ecological systems.

Physics does not usually offer this form of empowerment to students. Like environmental science helps students understand biomes, physics offers students the power to understand the physical world, but the social power of that understanding is supposedly neutral on activism. Of course, there is no social endeavor that is socially neutral—Physics is less explicit about its role in society, but part of it is part of the war machine, part industrialism.

What if physics did have a more unified, socially explicit message? It's hard for me to picture what that might be, but to students of a certain age, it might be something about energy. Just as an environmental science teacher would discuss the benefits of recycling paper, even have students spend a period making recycled paper, a physics teacher might discuss the benefits of extra insulation in a home, even have students spend a period insulating a wall in the classroom. Discussions and activities like this exist in some physics classrooms, the seeds of physicism.

Please see Physicism for a continuing discussion.

Energy in research and energy in education

Let us assume we can measure the interest, among academic physicists, in energy issues by counting articles and references in the AAPT and AIP periodicals, Physics Today and The Physics Teacher.

Energy research and policy issues regularly appear in Physics Today; for example photovoltaic power, fusion funding, and battery development all appear in the March 2011 issue. Energy appears less regularly in The Physics Teacher.

Our conclusion might be that energy is not as important to educators as it is to researchers. If so, we might further conclude that energy education should be more widely considered in order to match our students' education to their futures in research.

Free energy

In 6 years, nobody has asked me to include free energy or perpetual motion topics to our listings, I suppose because those interested in entertaining or beguiling the populace with such ideas don't enjoy close scrutiny. But perhaps we might take a different approach to free energy if we saw it as entertainment, as many physicists view magic.

Very expensive energy

Sometimes tinged with the same hucksterism as 'free energy,' I see many stories of creative ways to use or harness energy resources. Piezoelectric devices in the floor of heavily trafficked areas, micro-hydro turbines in our water faucets, etc.

Some ideas in this class of inventions actually make business sense and serve excellent purposes. Rentricity, for example, uses water turbines to reduce pressure where a pressure reduction valve did before, for the water utility, and the electricity can be grid-connected or power water monitoring equipment. http://www.rentricity.com/