Energy: How It Moves and Changes

A rolling ball, a ringing bell, a warm mug, a shining lamp: they all have energy. Let’s see how speed and energy go together, how energy travels from place to place, and how machines change it from one kind to another.

This lesson takes about 10 minutes. You can take a break after each part.

Before you start

Energy: How It Moves and Changes

Learning objectives

  • I can explain that a faster object has more energy.
  • I can describe how energy moves from place to place by sound, light, heat and electric current.
  • I can describe what happens to energy when objects collide, and name devices that change energy from one kind to another.

Speed and energy

Energy is everywhere

Energy makes things move, shine, sound or warm up. The faster an object moves, the more energy it has: a fast ball knocks down more pins.

Eight small pictures in two rows. A boy running fast. A storm cloud with lightning. A girl lifting a book above her head. A battery next to a sandwich. A steaming cup of hot cocoa. The glowing Sun. A boy beating a drum, with sound waves around it. A desk lamp shining light.
Energy is everywhere: motion, electricity, food, batteries, heat, light, sound.

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Energy on the move

From place to place

Energy can travel. Sound travels through the air to your ears. Light travels from a lamp to your eyes. An electric current carries energy from a battery to a bulb. Heat moves from a warmer object to a cooler one.

Three numbered steps. 1: a red hot block touches a blue cold block; a big arrow goes from the red block to the blue one, and the red thermometer is high, the blue one low. 2: the blocks are less different and the arrow is smaller. 3: two grey blocks, and an equal sign between two thermometers at the same level.
1 heat moves from warm to cool · 2 the warm block cools, the cool one warms · 3 same temperature: heat stops.
A mug of steaming hot water holds a metal spoon and a wooden spoon. A piece of butter sits on the end of each spoon. The butter on the metal spoon is melting and dripping. The butter on the wooden spoon is still solid.
Heat moves from the hot water up the metal spoon and melts the butter. It moves much more slowly through the wood.

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Collisions and energy changers

Crash, bang, glow

When objects collide, energy moves from one to the other. Some of it also becomes sound and a little heat.

Some devices change energy from one kind to another: a solar panel changes light into electricity, and a lamp changes electricity into light.

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Review game

Final assessment

To master the lesson, you need at least 60% correct answers.

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Summary

  • Moving things have energy: the faster an object moves, the more energy it has.
  • Energy travels from place to place by sound, light, heat and electric current.
  • Heat always moves from a warmer object to a cooler one.
  • When objects collide, energy moves from one to the other, and some becomes sound and heat.
  • Devices change energy from one kind to another: a solar panel, a lamp, a crank flashlight.

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