Collaborative: Research: Creating a Common Thermodynamics

热力学和随机分子运动的基本统计图景是生物学的基本原理。为了理解从细胞中的呼吸作用和光合作用到生态系统的生存和稳定的各种过程，学生们需要很好地理解能量、能量的守恒、能量的可用性和能量的转化。因为生物学是关于组织和结构的产生、维持和进化的，所以信息及其统计机械伙伴--熵的概念是至关重要的。在生物、化学和物理入门课上，学生通常会遇到能量、焓和熵。但在这三个学科中采取的方法可能会截然不同。通常，他们做出不同的(未陈述的)假设，导致热力学定律的陈述在不同的类别中看起来不同。在这个项目中，我们与四所大学的物理学家、化学家和生物学家组成的跨学科小组合作，以(1)就共同的内容和代表性方案达成一致；(2)创建文献调查，汇集学生从化学、生物和物理教育研究中对热力学概念的理解结果；(3)研究学生对能量、熵、扩散和随机过程基本概念的理解和态度；(4)创建网络材料，包括用于主动学习教学的文本和材料，用于生物学家的物理入门课程；以及(5)创建并验证一种工具，以评估学生在这些主题上的学习成果。

Thermodynamics and the underlying statistical picture of random molecular motions are fundamental in biology. In order to make sense of processes ranging from respiration and photosynthesis in the cell to the survival and stabilization of ecosystems students need a good understanding of energy, its conservation, its availability, and its transformation. Since biology is about the generation, maintenance, and evolution of organization and structure, the concept of information and its statistical mechanical partner, entropy, is critical. Students typically encounter energy, enthalpy, and entropy in introductory biology, chemistry, and physics classes. But the approach taken in the three disciplines can be dramatically different. Often, they make different (unstated) assumptions resulting in statements of the laws of thermodynamics that look different in different classes. This lack of consistency raises barriers to students' development of a coherent understanding of these important ideas.In this project, we work with an interdisciplinary group of physicists, chemists, and biologists at four universities to (1) come to an agreement on a common content and representational scheme; (2) create a literature survey bringing together results about student understanding of concepts in thermodynamics from chemistry, biology, and physics education research; (3) study student understandings of and attitudes about the basic concepts of energy, entropy, diffusion, and stochastic processes; (4) create web materials including text and materials for active-learning instruction for use in an introductory physics course for biologists; and (5) create and validate an instrument to evaluate students' learning gains on these topics.