#856: Interdisciplinary Concepts and Language: Energy in Physics and Chemistry

This poster presents design-based research by a practitioner-led team examining a simulation-based intervention in a college science course. The intervention supported small group cognitive reconciliation and conceptual integration. Discourse analysis showed students navigating negative potential energy (NPE) across physics and chemistry, demonstrating a sensemaking trajectory marked by shifts in terminology. However, students’ language misuse indicated reliance on intuitive reasoning, influenced by simulation scaffolding that made a noncanonical interpretation particularly salient.