Energy and the Confused Student IV: A Global Approach to Energy

Energy is a critical concept in physics problem-solving, but is often a major source of confusion for students if the presentation is not carefully crafted by the instructor or the textbook. In the first three articles1–3 in this series we discussed several issues related to the teaching of energy concepts. We have saved a major single issue for this article: the presentation of energy by means of a global approach. Energy, energy transfers, and energy transformations are at the heart of every process that occurs in physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, and geology. Consequently, it is useful and highly instructive to discuss this global nature of energy from the very beginning, when energy is first introduced in mechanics.