Re: felt dismissed

[Hugh Haskell <hhaskell@MINDSPRING.COM>]

At 10:39 -0700 6/8/02, William Beaty wrote:
> Seriously, in this case I think the cause of the students' troubles is the
> K-12 mental model of the atom, where each atom supposedly contains the
> proper number of electrons and is always neutral.  A second cause is the
> K-12 definition of the word "conductor", where "conductor" is any
> substance which doesn't block the flow of electrons.
>
> Until you get to the undergrad level,  nobody ever tells you that in some
> materials the outer electrons have left their atoms.   Nobody ever tells
> you that a "conductor" is not transparent to charge flow, but instead a
> "conductor" simply contains mobile charges.
Good point, Bill. I know that when talking about it, I do take care
to always talk about the "free electrons"  in a conductor, but I'm
not sure that I have been as explicit as perhaps I should have been
in emphasizing that point. I guess that I just never thought about it
as a student misconception. It would appear that I was wrong. I will
be more careful about that in the future.

Hugh
--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto:haskell@ncssm.edu>
<mailto:hhaskell@mindspring.com>

(919) 467-7610

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