Why Students Have Trouble Understanding Energy

Many science classes do experiments concerning energy, have extensive textbook sections covering energy and certainly make an effort to teach important concepts, but even the textbooks are not consistent with their approach to the topic. Student (and adult) misconceptions about energy undermine the foundation of understanding.

Some of the terms that relate to energy are: kinetic, potential, nuclear, chemical, electromagnetic, magnetic, fusion, fission, work, heat, light, ionization, solar, tidal, geothermal, electrostatic, radiation, wave, stored, volcanic, food and many more. Over 75 terms could be identified that relate to energy. To compound this problem science talks about how energy can change form as in a fire where the energy in the wood can be partially converted to light and heat. In discussions of magnetic forces we talk about a force acting through a distance, but it is a force that is not visible directly.

Even simple concepts such as eating which gives our bodies energy can be confusing, because the conversion of food into energy is at the cellular level and the process uses the term "metabolism". In general students do not associate energy with "work". If a student holds a book up with one hand, it feels like work is being done and energy is being used to keep the book in place, but a subtle aspect of the definition of work scientifically makes holding the book up as not being work. Work is defined as a force moving through a distance. So simply holding the book up is not work.

The underlying problem is that a lot of energy has the "potential" to do work. The relationship between matter and energy is not fully understood by scientists, so it is not that unusual that students have difficulty. The deceptively simple formula that Einstein developed E=mc2 was revolutionary when first developed. Some scientists are saying that at the very start of the universe all the forces were unified and that there may have been a big bang that started the universe that expanded at a rate even greater than the speed of light for some initial segment of the formation of the universe. (This might explain the rather uniform temperature of the universe for example.) This would mean that the universe as described by Einstein may apply more to the universe we see today rather than the universe at the moment of the theoretical big bang.

Academically good students actually have more difficulty with the many terms and varied presentations of energy concepts than lower level students because they tend to question how these many terms relate to each other and get more confused. Students of lower interest in science tend to simply accept as much as possible without as much questioning, but this does not mean they know more. In fact because they simply accept what teachers tell them, they may be displaying their lack of excitement about science. Gifted students tend to challenge everything and they can be quite a challenge in a classroom.

It is important that students develop a better foundation in the understanding of energy because we do spend a fair amount of classroom time now on the "conservation of energy" and the "sources of energy" for us on Earth. If students do not have a good foundation of energy, they can not be expected to become informed voting citizens when they become voters or even leaders in our community.

If you are going to teach any concepts related to energy, you might want to look at a few textbooks in addition to the one selected for your students. Each textbook may do a better job on a specific aspect of "energy". You may find better examples, better definitions, and better experiments that will help your students understand. You will need a lot of "energy" to teach about energy.