Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

energy before force and work



REPOSTING AFTER WAITING 24 HOURS, let me know (IN PRIVATE!) if you
saw this message, either yesterday or today.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Recent reflections of the editor of TPT (not to be confused with
the entry of Cindy Schwarz, September 1997) contained the following
suggestion for an Introductory Physics course.

"I would start by scaling the universe, in length and time and energy."
---------------------------------------------------------------------

This reminded me of a question which was asked on this list durint the
summer. Perhaps some of you were away and did not see it. I can not
quote the question but its content was like this:

Is somebody familiar with a curriculum developed in Germany in which
the concept of energy, and unit Joule, are introduced to students
before the concepts of force and work? If so please share what you know.

The only thing I know (from the modeling workshop at ASU) is that this
1970s approach has been implemented on large scale (and is being used),
that textbooks based on it have been written and that it was developed
by Falk et al. A reference to this innovative way of teaching was made
by Hans U. Fuchs in the March issue of AJP.

It would be nice if somebody who knows German, and who has time, could
find the materials and summarize them for us. Sounds like something
profoundly innovative. Considering the sentence underlined above I tend
to think that TPT would welcome an article on the subject. But I would
not bet on this.
Ludwik Kowalski