Both Energy Theater and Energy Cubes support students in tracking energy units through a dynamic process of transfers and transformations. These representations employ similar rules and we have found that learners can readily translate from one representation to another.
There are, however, significant differences in the way in which learners typically engage with these two representations such as:
- Students construct Energy Cubes representations while working in smaller groups at tables or sitting on the floor. Energy Theater requires students to coordinate among a larger group while standing and moving around the classroom. The physical activity and embodied experience of Energy Theater can be great for students but it does present some classroom management challenges.
- In Energy Theater each student is responsible for showing the transfers and transformations one particular unit of energy. This means every student must participate and coordinate their actions with other students. Attending closely to the role of a particular unit can make it difficult for students to attend wholistically to the collective roles of all energy units.
- In Energy Cubes it may be easier for students to attend to the collective roles of all energy units. That said, Energy Cubes does not mandate that all students participate. Some students may dominate the construction of an Energy Cubes representation while other students are passive observers.