When you’re traveling by train or riding along in a bus or car, you can easily spot a power station if you pass one. Many power stations have very tall towers called cooling towers. White clouds pour out of them.…
Why is electricity the most convenient form of energy to use? It is clean. It can travel over long distances along wires. It can easily be changed into other forms of energy, such as heat and light. To use the…
How old is a lump of coal? This sounds like a trick question, but it isn’t. Coal is millions of years old. Anthracite, the oldest and hardest coal, is 400 million years old. All those years ago, many parts of…
Have you ever taken a spoon out of a mug of hot cocoa or tea or some other hot drink? Did you find that the spoon was too hot to hold, so that you had to drop it? Did you…
Do you know that you are working when you are playing? To a scientist, work is any kind of action that uses energy. Energy is needed to do all types of work—for example, to throw a ball into the air…
Every form of energy can change into another form of energy.Coal is a fuel that contains stored chemical energy. When coal burns, the chemical energy inside it changes into heat energy.Energy may change in form, but it can’t be made…
Have you ever heard a jet airplane when it is getting ready to take off? The noise that the plane makes is sometimes so loud that you cannot hear any other noise.Sound is a type of energy. Sounds are produced when…
“On your marks! Get set! Go! ” These are the orders the starter shouts when you take part in a running race. When you are running, your body has a lot of kinetic energy, the energy of movement. When you…
How do we get energy from food? We use energy all the time, even when we are asleep. We need energy for our body to work. We need energy to keep us warm. When the weather is cold, or when…
Have you ever been to a display of chemical energy?You probably have, but you called it something else. At a display of chemical energy, there are usually many different colored lights and a lot of noise.Rockets shoot up into the…