Keith S. Taber
Bill was a Y7 student participating in the Understanding Science project. He used the idea of energy in talking about some aspects of his science. So when considering melting "the particles in (a solid), would have the energy, to move about more, and then it would melt down, because of its melting point, and go into a liquid". Although he could not explain what energy was, he knew "it gives something – the energy to move, it will make something else move or something". He remembered having done some work "where we had to make elastic band powered, 'cause the elastic band stored the energy to make it move", so energy could be stored.
Bill also told me about how in his previous school "we did a lot about plants, and – inside them, how they produce their own food". He explained that "inside, it has leaves, inside it, there is chlorophyll, which stores sunlight, and then it goes, then it uses that sunlight to produce its food. It also uses water from the roots, and the soil, and oxygen in the air. So it needs sunlight, oxygen and water to make its food and live."
However, Bill did not relate this process to the notion of energy, and see that the 'storing sunlight' might have been like the energy stored in an elastic band:
Interviewer: We were talking about energy just now.
Bill: Yeah
I: Do you think that's got anything to do with energy? That process you just talked about?
B: Hm, erm, (pause, c.3 seconds) I'm not sure
So Bill did not make the connection between storing energy, and what he interpreted from his science lesson as 'storing sunlight'. This appears to be an example of a fragmentation learning impediment.
