Panel debate on energy production in high school physics teaching

Abstract

This paper presents a method to develop students’ knowledge about energy resources and energy production through scientific argumentation in a panel debate. The method was used with fifteen different 11th grade classes in a high school in Romania. In the last five years, research was conducted on the change in attitudes of students towards different types of energy resources and how they accepted environmental hazards resulting from energy production. Throughout these years, several misconceptions were observed regarding the origin of energy resources, the energy production processes, and their effects on the environment. To have a sound understanding of these misconceptions, a study was conducted with the help of a 21-item multiple-choice energy resources knowledge assessment. The test was completed by 720 high school students (9th to 11th grade) from nine different schools in Transylvania, Romania. Data analysis shows that misunderstandings regarding energy resources and energy production were similar to those in US schools and presented in other research papers. To help create a society well-prepared to make decisions about energy production constraints, it is essential that we add a chapter to the Physics curriculum. In this paper, we present our arguments for introducing energy production as a new topic in the Physics curriculum. Our results show the energy panel debate is a very effective method for teaching this topic.