TY - JOUR AU1 - Scaife, Jon AB - A common approach when teaching about energy in circuits in secondary schools is to treat flowing electrons as carriers of energy from a source to a sink. The paper argues that although this may seem to be a useful model for teaching, it is unscientific and may ultimately be confusing to students who continue to adopt it at key stage 4 and above. A ‘system view’ is suggested as an alternative, in which some parts of the system play the role of connectors, not carriers. Parallels are drawn with mechanical systems. A teaching approach that uses a system view of circuits is recommended because it is both scientifically sound and pedagogically powerful. TI - Energy, systems and connectors; or why electrons don’t carry energy from batteries to bulbs JF - Physics Education DO - 10.1088/0031-9120/47/6/760 DA - 2012-11-01 UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/iop-publishing/energy-systems-and-connectors-or-why-electrons-don-t-carry-energy-from-wIxknar5Zo SP - 760 VL - 47 IS - 6 DP - DeepDyve ER -