Lesson 4 of 10 · Energy

Experiment⭐ 30 XP⚡ Spark Lab

Conservation of Energy

🧪Lab Brief #4

Conservation of Energy.

🎯 Your mission

Set it up. Test it. Be amazed.

⚡ The twist

Speed isn't the same as force. Don't mix them up.

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Mind = Blown

🔥 A bolt of lightning is 5 times hotter than the surface of the sun.

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Make a hypothesis first

Guess: where does the energy go?

What You'll Learn

Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only shifted between stores and transferred by heating, working, radiation or electric current. A pendulum trades gravitational store for kinetic store and back, losing a little to thermal store with every swing.

Key Words

Tap a word to see its definition.

Materials Needed

string
small mass
clamp stand
metre rule
protractor

Safety First

Weight the clamp stand base and swing the bob away from people and glass.

Steps

Step 1 — Read

Read the explanation above and note the two key terms before you start.

Step 2 — Do

Release a pendulum from a marked height and record the height it reaches on each of the next five swings. Plot height against swing number and explain the decline in terms of energy transferred to the surroundings.

Step 3 — Observe

Record what actually happened, including anything that did not match what you expected.

Step 4 — Record

Write a conclusion that answers the question this lesson opened with, and state your uncertainty.

Check Your Understanding

Question 1

1 of 2

Energy in a closed system is:

How sure are you going to be?😐 maybe

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Where you see this in real life

This is why airplanes can fly and why rockets reach space.

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Stretch Challenge

Try this in real life this week.

This week, find one thing in your house that turns one kind of energy into another.

👨‍👩‍👧

For the dinner table

“Show me something at home that uses this kind of energy.”

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