Absent an adequate language to talk about change and the direction of change, science curricula are fundamentally constrained to over-emphasize static constructs like taxonomies and memorized sequences of events. In contrast with these over-simplified, statics-based curricula, the world students live in is complex and dynamic. A fundamental disconnect is created between what learners know of their world and the current statics-based science they are taught in school. In addition to moving toward a math of change strand in school curricula and early university curricula (e.g. early non-calculus sciences), a full dynamics-based curriculum needs to address the directed-ness we experience in the world around us. When we get up in the morning, energy always flows from our warm feet to the cold floor and never the other way around. The second law of thermodynamics the entropy law is the only law of science that allows learners to understand the directed-ness of physical process. Replacing statics-based curricula with a full dynamics-based reform depends vitally on being able to talk about change but also on being able to talk about the direction of change. Recent educational innovations related to the early introduction of the math of change e.g. the use of motion detectors and powerful simulation software are starting to find their way into significant curricular reform. Unfortunately, entropy related fundamental research, materials development, and course-work aimed at advancing the dynamic-based understanding of all learners is all but non-existent. This grant is aimed at addressing this critical missing element in pursuing dynamics-based reform. Over a decade of entropy-based research and innovation leads me to believe that entropy ideas can be incorporated into learning about energy dynamics early on in science education, that entropy can be taught in a way that is cross-disciplinary and cross-level (from the very small to the very large), and that moving in this direction not only advances student understanding of entropy but that the ability of all students to better understand and succeed, at virtually all levels of their science learning, is significantly advanced. Although I intend for this entropy-focused work to impact science learning from late elementary through the wide range of undergraduate science courses, my primary focus will be on two critical junctures in students' lives relative to formal science learning: early high school and early university level work. Coming into these junctures many students are "still in the game" and are interested in further science study. Coming out of these junctures many students decide to leave, especially students from under-represented groups. Courses taught at these levels will serve both as testbeds for the efficacy of entropy-based learning and as research settings. In schools, I will focus primarily on the state-mandated, ninth-grade Integrated Physics and Chemistry course. At the university level I will focus on a newly developed undergraduate science course titled Entropy and Energy that I will co-teach with a research physicist who is also Co-Director of the completely restructured and rapidly growing new secondary certification program called UTeach. Domain courses, such as this, in the new UTeach program are to model Standards-based teaching at the university level. Research insights related to student learning as such learning with entropy will be integrated with my newly developed Knowing and Learning course that is the first required education course for all the UTEACH students. Through the establishment of a work circle of teachers in schools, through the establishment of a brown-bag seminar series at the university, through research presentations and publications, and through the development of a Learning Entropy and Energy (LEEP) website, this project is intended to support a larger conversation related to the efficacy and significance of learning about and with entropy as a vital part of moving towards a dynamics-based curriculum for all students.
