Ontological metaphors for negative energy in an interdisciplinary context

Teaching about energy in interdisciplinary settings that emphasize coherence among physics, chemistry, and biology leads to a more central role for chemical bond energy. We argue that an interdisciplinary approach to chemical energy leads to modeling chemical bonds in terms of negative energy. While recent work on ontological metaphors for energy has emphasized the affordances of the substance ontology, this ontology is problematic in the context of negative energy. Instead, we apply a dynamic ontologies perspective to argue that blending the substance and location ontologies for energy can be effective in reasoning about negative energy in the context of reasoning about chemical bonds. We present data from an introductory physics for the life sciences course in which both experts and students successfully use this blended ontology. Blending these ontologies is most successful when the substance and location ontologies are combined such that each is strategically utilized in reasoning about particular aspects of energetic processes.

Figure 1

The Lennard-Jones potential, approximating the interaction between two atoms.

Figure 2

The picture given to students in the kinesin task, along with a description of the kinesin’s motion.

Figure 3

An example of an energy bar chart in which the kinetic energy is greater than the total energy.

Figure 4

A reconstruction of the bar graphs drawn by Peter’s group.