ENERGY IN SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

Energy is a unifying concept that spans all the sciences, and is of fundamental importance in issues of social concern, such as the environment and the use of fuel resources. Children have preliminary notion of energy from everyday life, related with the problems of environment and economics (energy production, energy consumption, energy crises). At school, they are confronted with physical idea of ‘conserved energy'. In our survey we analyze the introduction of energy concept in Hungarian, Serbian and Polish introductory science textbooks and how that concept is assimilated by pupils We point out some common mistakes and imprecisions occurring in textbooks. We also present how the ways of introducing and explaining the notion of energy was changing over last decades and make some suggestions concerning possible changes for the future.