Energy Transferred by Working
Energy and Thermal Physics

Thinking about actions to take: Paying for Getting Things Done

Teaching Guidance for 11-14 Supporting Physics Teaching

There's a good chance you could improve your teaching if you were to:

Try these

  • emphasise that energy is essentially quantitative
  • talk and act as if energy is a constraint on possibilities, not a cause of a process
  • work with a clear ontology
  • keeping power and energy separate

Teacher Tip: Work through the Physics Narrative to find these lines of thinking worked out and then look in the Teaching Approaches for some examples of activities.

Avoid these

  • allowing an endless list of kinds of energy
  • using energy as cause

Teacher Tip: These difficulties are distilled from: the research findings; the practice of well-connected teachers with expertise; issues intrinsic to representing the physics well.

Energy Transferred by Working
appears in the relation dU=dQ+dW
is used in analyses relating to Working Engines Thermionic Emission
is a special case of Work
has the special case Potential Energy Kinetic Energy
IOP AWARDS 2025

Teachers of Physics Awards

The Teachers of Physics Award celebrates the success of secondary school physics teachers who have raised the profile of physics and science in schools. Nominations for 2025 are now open.

Start your nomination now