How energy is conceptualized in biology units?

Abstract

This paper considers the biological approach of the concept of energy that is currently used in the classroom from the study of different textbooks and digital books. The purpose is to find out the energy concept set out in textbooks and in the end of unit exercises, and also identify a possible relationship between the cognitive demand of the end of unit exercises and the approach to the concept of energy. Results show a multiplicity of ideas about the concept of energy, not only in texts but also in exercises, being the ideas of flow and storage the most common ones and having also detected different ideas about the concept of energy within a teaching unit. Regarding the cognitive demand of the exercises, results show the prevalence of lower cognitive demand activities, highlighting the fact that most of them do not work the concept of energy at all but instead pupils are just asked, for example, to give definitions or to create a list of organs and organelles.