New trends in physics teaching, v.4; The ... - unesdoc - Unesco

New Trends in Physics Teaching IV
blooded and warm-blooded animals. Adaptation to light intensity, temperature and light gradients
and their effect on forms of life.)
Unit 3:
1. Changes in energy in the environmental system. (Conservation of energy in any process of
change in the environment whether natural or man-made; transformation of light energy into
chemical energy stored in plants by photosynthesis, release of this chemical energy in various
combustion processes - in the body of living things, in chemical reactions, etc.)
2. Man utilizes the energy transformations for his benefit. (Some of the energy transformations
that man utilizes for his comfort and survival such as (a) generating electricity from winds,
water currents and waterfalls, waves, tides, (b) generating motion from burning fuels.)
Unit 4:
1. Matter-energy balance in the human body system, growth as a result of such balance;
balance in the human body in ordinary activities and in such other activities as energyconsuming
sports.
2. Man-made technological processes and their effect on the natural balance of the environment.
(Consuming fossil fuels, combustion by-products, how ‘these by-products pollute the
environment. . .judging the cleanliness of several energy forms when used in industrial processes.)’
It wil be clear that a variety of instructional methods must be used. The children are involved
in a variety of tasks including field trips, observation, practical work in the laboratory, information
collection from the library or elsewhere.
This range of experience helps to achieve such objectives of the environmental programme as:
motivating children and developing their interest in science; training them to collect information
using a variety of methods and so developing the concept that science is not only practised in
the laboratory; relating children to their environment; developing in them the concepts of the
unity of science, the unity of man and his environment; training their mental and manipulative
skills; urging them to think and plan, to hypothesize and to test their hypotheses; helping them
to develop environmental awareness of the many roles man plays in the environmental system,
of its use and abuse, and of the decisions man has to take to keep God’s system running in its
natural way, and helping them to grasp the universal laws that control the universe and its systems
from the macroscopic to the microscopic level.
Energy continues as an integrating theme in the secondary school curriculum which is designed
around the separate sciences.
TEACHING ENERGY IN THE SECONDARY SCHOOLS : GRADES 10 to 12
I. Physics
Energy is the core around which the physics programme for grade 10 is built. It considers the
behaviour of the electron when it gains or loses energy and discusses the physical phenomena
resulting from such processes.
1. In grades 8 and 9 further energy modules are included dealing with nuclear energy, solar energy. . . etc. Details may be obtained
from the author.
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