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transferred and can only in exist in the two forms of KE and PE is strongly reinforced. In
their view, energy conversion kits should be renamed energy transfer kits and pupils
should be encouraged to identify the source and path of the energy rather than
transformations.

Another proponent of disbanding energy transformations is Chisholm (1992). He asserts
that simple energy conversion chain explanations of phenomena such as ‘sound to
electric’ in a telephone mouthpiece or ‘heat to kinetic’ in a power station are at best, naive
and minimal, at worst incorrect. Most disturbing is that these examples were quoted from
exam questions as being the ‘correct’ answers.

Despite the attacks on energy transformations, Sapwell (1990) still proposes a teaching
resource comprising domino-like jigsaws for constructing energy transformation chains.
This paper did not explicitly arrive as a reaction against the new model of energy transfers
being proposed. In fact, no mention of the conceptual aspects of energy was made at all.
Its presence in academic literature at this time is thus considered here as intriguing.

It is strongly argued here that the model of ‘energy transfers’ is closer to the ‘best possible
truth’ than the model of ‘energy transformations.’ Hence, it is considered most appropriate
to introduce and teach energy this way in view of a position towards coherence and
accuracy rather than oversimplification. A deep criticism of the transformations model is
that it fails to distinguish between the energy that can be directly attributed to objects and
systems and energy transfer mechanisms. Under transformations, both are incorrectly
lumped together as being different ‘energy forms’.

The models are similar in that it may be correct to say that a moving object has a certain
amount of kinetic energy, or that an object high up has a certain amount of gravitational
potential energy relative to a lower position. Thus, energy can be attributed to objects or
systems – this is consistent in both models. However, this should be kept well separated
from talking about the processes which may occur to cause energy to move from one place
to another – energy transfer mechanisms. For example an electric current causes energy to
be transferred around circuit components – electrons transfer energy. Placing a hot object
near a cold one causes energy to be transferred by the process of ‘heating’. The
transformations model would say that a wire in a circuit carried ‘electrical energy’ and
that ‘heat energy’ flowed from a hot to a cold object.
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