New Perspectives in Science Education

The fundamental research of the Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) 1073 “Atomic scale control of energy conversion” at the University of Göttingen aims to contribute to a sustainable energy future by providing guidelines for technical innovations which allow a clean, efficient and sustainable generation and storage of electric energy. Since a large proportion of e.g. wind energy is converted into heat by friction occurring in the bearings of wind turbines, the CRC project A01 deals with friction and has already contributed to a better understanding and control of friction at the atomic scale. Even though friction is all around us, its fundamental causes are still not fully understood. At the macroscopic scale, friction is often described by simple empirical laws, but those cannot be applied at the atomic scale. The CRC enables high school students to discover this scale dependency themselves experimentally during the “Hands-On Energy Science Workshop” presented here. The workshop starts with friction phenomena students experience everywhere in their everyday life, e.g. in their bicycle brakes. Afterwards, they apply normal forces FN using weights and measure the related friction force FR between two materials at the macroscopic scale. By using the Atomic Force Microscope of the CRC, students can then perform an analog experiment at the nanoscale, but the plot of the nanoscale friction forces vs. the nanoscale normal forces shows that the simple law FR = µ FN taught in school does not fit. This creates a cognitive conflict. Students thereupon plot the forces they measured at the macroscopic scale and recognize that they do not have to change their pre-conceptions of friction, but that they need to extend it: Size must be considered. They finally understand why CRCs energy conversion studies at the atomic scale are required, in particular because components of technical innovations become smaller and smaller.

Keywords: friction, energy science, fundamental research.