ABSTRACT
Energy is an abstract science concept, so the ways that we think and talk about energy rely heavily on
ontological metaphors: metaphors for what kind of thing energy is. Two commonly used ontological
metaphors for energy are energy as a substance and energy as a vertical location. Our previous work has
demonstrated that students and experts can productively use both the substance and location
ontologies for energy. In this paper, we use Fauconnier and Turner’s conceptual blending
framework to demonstrate that experts and novices can successfully blend the substance and
location ontologies into a coherent mental model in order to reason about energy. Our data come
from classroom recordings of a physics professor teaching a physics course for the life sciences,
and from an interview with an undergraduate student in that course. We analyze these data using
predicate analysis and gesture analysis, looking at verbal utterances, gestures, and the interaction
between them. This analysis yields evidence that the speakers are blending the substance and
location ontologies into a single blended mental space.
