Lesson ​6
What is Energy?
Everything moves, heats up, or lights up because of energy. Learners identify the different forms of energy and discover that all of them share one thing in common: they make things go.

Key Ideas
  • Energy is defined by what it does. It makes things move, change, or happen.
  • Four major forms of energy: heat energy (thermal energy), light energy (radiant energy), electrical energy, and movement energy (mechanical energy). All of them can make things go.
  • No process creates energy from nothing, and no process destroys it. When energy seems to disappear, it has actually shifted into a different form.

Supplies:


Vocabulary
  • Energy: Something that makes things move, change, or happen. It is defined by what it does, not what it is.
  • Thermal energy: Heat energy. The energy of warmth, felt from the sun, a fire, or any warm object.
  • Radiant energy: Light energy. It travels outward from a source in all directions.
  • Electrical energy: The energy of moving electric charge, carried through conducting materials.
  • Mechanical energy: Movement energy. The energy of any object in motion.
  • Conservation of energy: The principle that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only changed from one form to another.

Discussion Questions
  • If energy cannot be created or destroyed, where did the energy in the universe originally come from?
  • When you feel exhausted after a long run, where did your energy actually go?
  • Can you think of a situation where it looks like no energy is being used, but energy is actually being transferred?

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L6: What is Energy by Selene
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