  Energy is a complex idea that cuts across scientific disciplines. For life
science students, an approach to energy that incorporates chemical bonds and
chemical reactions is better equipped to meet the needs of life sciences
students than a traditional introductory physics approach that focuses
primarily on mechanical energy. We present a curricular sequence, or thread,
designed to build up students' understanding of chemical energy in an
introductory physics course for the life sciences. This thread is designed to
connect ideas about energy from physics, biology, and chemistry. We describe
the kinds of connections among energetic concepts that we intended to develop
to build interdisciplinary coherence, and present some examples of curriculum
materials and student data that illustrate our approach.
