Jim was a participant in the Understanding Science Project. When I was talking to students on that project I used to ask them what they were studying in science, rather than ask them about my own agenda of topics. However, I was interested in the extent to which they integrated and linked their science knowledge, so I would from time to time ask if topics they told me about were linked with other topics they had discussed with me. The following extract is taken form the fourth of a sequence of interviews during Jim's first year in secondary school (Y7 in the English school system.
And earlier in the year, you were doing about dissolving sugar. Do you remember that?
Erm, yeah.
Do you think that’s got anything to do with the human body?
Erm, we eat sugar.
Mm. True.
Gives us energy…It powers us.
Ah. And why do we need power do you think?
So we can move.
This seemed a reasonable response, but I was intrigued to know if Jim was yet aware of metabolism and how the tissues require a supply of sugar even when there is no obvious activity.
Ah what if you were a lazy person, say you were a very lazy rich person? And you were able to lie in bed all day, watch telly, whatever you like, didn’t have to move, didn’t have to budge an eyelid, … you’re rich, your servants do everything for you? Would you till need energy?
Yes.
Why?
I dunno, ‘cause being in bed’s tired, tiring.
Is it?
When I’m ill, I stay off for a day, I just feel tired, and like at the end of the day, even more tired than I do when I come to school some times.
So maybe when you are ill, you should come to school, and then you would feel better?
No.
No, it doesn’t work like that?
No.
Okay, so why do you think we get tired, when we are just lying, doing absolutely nothing?
Because, it’s using a lot of our energy, doing something.
Hm, so even when we are lying at home ill, not doing anything, somehow we are using energy doing something, are we?
Yes.
What might that be, what might we use energy for?
Thinking.
I thought this was a good response, as I was not sure all students of his age would realise that thinking involved energy although my own conceptualisation was in terms of cellular metabolism, and how thinking depend on transmitting electrical signals along axons and across synapses. I suspected Jim was not thinking in such terms.
Do you think it uses energy to think?
(Pause, c.3s)
Probably.
Why do you think that?
Well cause, like, when you haven’t got any energy, you can’t think, like the same as TV, when it hasn’t got any energy, it can’t work. So it’s a bit like our brains, when we have not got enough energy we feel really tired, and we just want to go to sleep, which can give us more energy, a bit like food.
So sleeping can give us energy?
Yeah.
How does that work?
Er, it’s like putting a battery onto charge, probably, you go to sleep, and then you don’t have to do anything, for a little while, and you, then you wake up and you feel - less tired.
Okay so, you think you might need energy to think, because if you have not got any energy, you are very tired, you can’t think very well, but somehow if you have a sleep, that might somehow bring the energy back?
Yeah.
So where does that energy come from?
(Pause c.2s)
Erm - dunno.
This was an interesting response. At one level it was a deficient answer, as energy is conserved, and Jim's suggestion seemed to require energy to be created or to appear from some unspecified source.
Jim's responses here offered a number of interesting comparisons (similes):
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Dr Keith S Taber kst24@cam.ac.uk
University of Cambridge Faculty of Education
© Keith S Taber, 2013