Keith S. Taber
Amy was a participant in the Understanding Science Project. When I had talked to Amy when she was in Y10 she had referred to things being bonded: "where one thing is joined on to another thing, and it can be chemically bonded" and how "in a compound, where two or more elements are joined together, that's an example of chemical bonding".
The following year, in Y11, when she was studying fats she talked about "how they're made up and like with all the double bonds and single bonds" where a double bond was "where there are kind of like two bonds between erm carbon atoms instead of like one" and a bond was "how two atoms are joined together". Later in Y11, Amy told be that she did not know how to explain chemical bonding, but "in lessons like we've always been shown these kind of – things – where you kind of, you've got the atom, and then you've got the little, grey stick things which are meant to be the bonds, and you can just – fit them together."
As Amy had told me "everything is made up of atoms", I provocatively asked her if the chemical bond was made of atoms. Amy had "absolutely no idea" but she "suppose(d) it would have to be, wouldn't it".
Not only is this an alternative conception, but to a chemist, or science teacher, the idea that chemical bonds are themselves made up of atoms seems incongruous and offers a potential for infinite regress (are those atoms in the bonds, themselves bonded? If so, are those bonds also made of atoms?)
This alternative conception could be considered a kind of associative learning impediment – that is where a learner makes an unintended link and so applies an idea outside of its range of application. All material is considered to be made of atoms – or at least quanticles comprising one of more nuclei bound to electrons (i.e., ions, molecules). Even this is not an absolute: the material formed immediately after the big bang was not of this form, and nor is the matter in a neutron star, but the material we usually engage with is considered to be made of atom-like units (i.e., ions, molecules).
But to suggest that Amy has made an inappropriate association seems a little unfair. Had Amy thought "all matter was made of atoms" and then suggested that chemical bonding was made of atoms this would be inappropriate as chemical bonding is not material but a process – electrical interactions between quanticles. Yet it is hard to see how one can over-extend the range of 'everything', as in "everything is made up of atoms".
There is an inherent problem with the motto everything is made up of atoms. It is probably something that teachers commonly say, and think is entirely clear – that it is obvious what its scope is – but from the perspective of a student there is not the wealth of background knowledge to appreciate the implied limits on 'everything'.
Learners will readily pick up teaching mottos such as "everything is made of atoms" and take them quite literally: if everything is made of atoms then bonds must be made of atoms. So although she was wrong, I think Amy was just applying something she had learnt.
