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What is energy? |
Energy
What are some ways in which you use the word “energy”? Eating meals gives you the energy you need to play outside. Putting gasoline in a car gives it energy to drive. When your toy car runs out of batteries, it has no more energy. Plants need the energy from sunlight to make their food.
So… what is energy?
At its most basic, energy is what makes things go! Its definition is “the ability to do work.” If that sounds confusing, think about some of those examples from above: Eating food gives your body the ability to do work (play). Gasoline gives your car the ability to do work (drive), batteries give your toy the ability to work (move), and sunlight gives plants the ability to do work (live and grow)!
One of the neat things about energy is that it comes in lots of different forms! There is heat energy, light energy, chemical energy, electrical energy, mechanical energy, sound energy, and more! Different forms of energy each work with different things. For example, electrical energy will power a toaster but it won’t help plants grow, and the energy stored in food can be used by humans and animals but will not turn on your computer! Forms of energy can also change into each other. A lamp is a good example: Electrical energy becomes heat and light energy!
The forms of energy are divided into two types: Stored energy (a.k.a. “potential energy”) and moving energy (a.k.a. “kinetic energy”). Batteries, gasoline, and a ball sitting at the top of an incline are types of stored energy – they contain energy that is waiting to happen. A waterfall or a ball rolling down a hill are types of moving energy – this type of energy applies to things that are actively in motion!
Just like forms of energy can change into each other (as in the lamp example), so can the two kinds of energy, potential and moving. For example, you can use moving energy to climb to the top of the slide. Once you’ve made it to the top, you’ve created the potential energy to slide down! The potential energy then becomes moving energy again when you ride down. Whee!
Sometimes it’s easiest to start figuring out energy just by looking around you! Study the room you’re in and name all of the forms of energy you can see. How are they giving something the ability to do work? What type of energy are they, moving or potential? Is there more than one form of energy involved, or does one form or kind turn into another??
- “Forms of Energy.” Energy Kids. U.S. Energy Information Administration. 26 Mar. 2010
- “What is Energy?” RES 733 Energy Education: Concepts and Practices. Wisconsin K-12 Energy Education Program (KEEP). 26 Mar. 2010
- “What is Energy?” Energy Story. 2002. Energy Quest – The California Energy Commission. 26 Mar. 2010
- Nebel, Bernard J. Ph.D. “Chapter 15 - Energy: Making Things Go.” Nebel’s Elementary Education. Maryland: Nebel’s Press for Learning, 2001. 349-354.
nice explanation of hard concept 4 youngsters - thanks ~~