Connecting the Dots: Concepts in Physics: Energy

For students in Grades 8, 9, 10, from any Board (CBSE/ IB/ IGCSE/ ICSE, etc.)

We were inspired by some recent posts on Social Media about the excessive focus on methods/ short-cuts/ speed, as opposed to foundational understanding. There's plenty of research about typical conceptual gaps in students' understanding at at various age/ grade levels. Our blog post, Conceptual Learning: What, Why and How, provides a more detailed background.

With this starting point, our mentors sat down to curate a list of such areas that students could do well to have a deep, foundational understanding of, that they can build on, over time. We have identified such topics across Science (Physics, Chemistry, Biology) and Math.

This module explores the scientific concept of Energy which is central to all disciplines of Science- be it Physics, Chemistry or Biology. Energy is an abstract concept unlike concepts like force and motion which can be experienced concretely. The content has been chosen based on a knowledge of common student misconceptions and errors- derived from research as well as the experience base of our mentors. For each topic, the student experience includes pre-work, live sessions with mentors, assignments/ assessments, and feedback. In addition, students can email their doubts and questions to the mentor at any point of time during the course.

The tricky idea of energy will be explored in the following ways in the course. The ideas of kinetic and potential energy in classical mechanics will be taken up. The relationship between work, force and energy and particularly how this is related to potential energy will be explored. Energy at the microscopic level and how it is related to energy at the macroscopic level will be studied through looking at heat, temperature, the law of conservation of energy and the first law of therodynamics. Students will see how simple ideas of energy conservation can explain such diverse phenomena as jumping heights of animals from a standing position, and why paper does not burn at room temperature but ignites around 900 degrees Kelvin. In short, this course will provide a conceptual grounding of the concept of energy that will equip science students to make sense of things as they study these further in grade 11, 12 and in college.

The course comprises 6 sessions of 1.5 hours each.

The course is NOT a tuition service aimed at preparation for exams. These courses are also NOT a substitute for school work.

If you would like to get a feel for the conceptual approach we take in the course, we recommend taking the 'Concepts Quiz' at https://bit.ly/ConceptQuiz (kids) or https://bit.ly/ConcepTest (grownups). If you would like to discuss the quiz questions after taking it, you can write to online@genwise.in. The quiz has questions across Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Mathematics.

Please see here, and here for a couple of testimonials from earlier editions of our Connecting The Dots series.