Background: Design and science inquiry are intertwined during engineering practice. In this study, we examined the relationship between design behaviors and scientific explanations. Data on student design processes were collected as students engaged in a project on designing energy-efficient buildings on a blank square city block surrounded by existing buildings using a computer-aided design program, Energy3D, with built-in solar energy simulation capabilities. We used criterion sampling to select two highly reflective students among 63 high school students. Results: The main data sources were design replays (automatic playback of student design sequences within the CAD software) and electronic notes taken by the students. We identified evidence of informed design such as problem framing, idea fluency, and balancing benefits and trade-offs. Opportunities for meaningful science learning through engineering design occurred when students attempted to balance design benefits and trade-offs. Conclusions: The results suggest that design projects used in classrooms should emphasize trade-off analysis and include time and resources for supporting trade-off decisions through experimentation and reflection. Future research should explore ways to visualize patterns of design behavior based on large samples of students.

This paper provides a theoretical perspective of how modeling and simulation on a CAD platform can be used to teach science concepts and inform design decisions. The paper discusses the educational implications of three recent advancements in CAD technologies: system integration, machine learning, and computational design. The challenges to design energy‐efficient buildings that harness solar energy are used as the engineering examples to illustrate the learning and teaching opportunities created by the modeling, simulation, and data mining capabilities of the Energy3D software, which is a CAD tool developed from scratch along the directions of the three advancements to support engineering research and education. Preliminary results from students in a physics classroom and an online course shed light on the effects of these features on guiding student to design cost‐effective rooftop solar power systems for their own home buildings.

Based on detecting long-wavelength infrared (IR) radiation emitted by the subject, IR imaging shows temperature distribution instantaneously and heat flow dynamically. As a picture is worth a thousand words, an IR camera has great potential in teaching heat transfer, which is otherwise invisible. The idea of using IR imaging in teaching was first discussed by Vollmer et al. in 2001.1–3 IR cameras were then too expensive for most schools. Thanks to the growing need of home energy inspection using IR thermography, the price of IR cameras has plummeted and they have become easy to use. As of 2011, the price of an entry-level handheld IR camera such as the FLIR I3 has fallen below $900 for educators. A slightly better version, FLIR I5, was used to take the IR images in this paper. As easy to use as a digital camera, the I5 camera automatically generates IR images of satisfactory quality with a temperature sensitivity of 0.1°C. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how these affordable IR cameras can be used as a visualization, inquiry, and discovery tool. As the prices of IR cameras continue to drop, it is time to give teachers an update about the educational power of this fascinating tool, especially in supporting inquiry-based learning.

S cientists have long relied on powerful imaging techniques to see things invisible to the naked eye and thus advance science. 1 For example, microscopes and telescopes allow tiny and remote things to be observed, respectively.Infrared (IR) imaging is a tool that shows the temperature distribution of a system based on detecting the invisible IR radiation it emits. Being a noncontact tool, it does not disturb the experimental system-an advantage over thermometers or temperature sensors that need to come into thermal contact with an object to measure its temperatures. The tool generates intuitive images in which different colors represent different temperatures. As a picture is worth a thousand words, an IR camera is a perfect tool for teaching heat transfer. 2À4 More broadly, many physical, chemical, and biological processes that involve heat can be visualized by using IR imaging. In principle, anything that leaves a trace of heat leaves a trace of itself under an IR camera. To some extent, heat can be regarded as some kind of "IR ink" that renders a view of energy flow and reveals an invisible ' AUTHOR INFORMATION

This paper reports a method of simulating chemical reaction kinetics by adding rule-based elementary reactions to a classical molecular dynamics simulation. The method can reproduce many important thermodynamic properties of chemical reactions, and can be used to build interactive software that runs on typical personal computers. Its capacity has many potential applications for learning the core ideas of chemistry.

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Heat transfer is widely taught in secondary Earth science and physics. Researchers have identified many misconceptions related to heat and temperature.1These misconceptions primarily stem from hunches developed in everyday life (though the confusions in terminology often worsen them). Interactive computer simulations that visualize thermal energy, temperature distribution, and heat transfer may provide a straightforward method for teaching and learning these concepts. Through interacting with visual representations of the concepts and observing how they respond to manipulations, the misconceptions may be dispelled more effectively. This paper presents a new educational simulation tool called Energy2D developed to explore this idea.

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