Non-science oriented students and the second law of thermodynamics

Abstract

The present article describes the development, implementation and evaluation of a module: ‘Energy and the Human Being’, within the framework of a programme aimed at non-science oriented students in senior high schools in Israel. The objectives of this programme are to enable students to gain a broad outlook of scientific concepts and to make science seem relevant, both to each student personally and to society in general. The module tries to clarify some issues concerning abundant feelings about energy. Both children and adults confuse the notion of the quality of energy with that of the amount of energy. Thus they feel that energy is not an entity that is conserved because one has to pay for its use. The programme is built around two main ideas: (1) Energy can be converted from one form to another but each transformation is accompanied by some of it being converted to heat and thus the ability to perform work decreases. (2) Work is performed when a spontaneous process is coupled with a non-spontaneous process, thus causing it to happen. The programme was implemented and the results of the evaluation seem to indicate that it improved students' attitudes towards science in general and towards school science in particular. The results also show that a substantial proportion of the students understood the main scientificideas presented to them.