Energy stores and transfers
Identify the main energy stores (kinetic, gravitational potential, elastic potential, thermal, chemical, nuclear, electromagnetic) and the pathways by which energy is transferred between stores (mechanically, electrically, by heating, by radiation)
Typical age: 11–12 years
“If your child watched a ball being thrown upward and then falling back down, could they describe what type of energy the ball has at the top of its arc and at the bottom — and explain what happened to the energy between those two points?”
0 / 4 mastered
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Needs first
- Speed and energyREQUIRED
KS3 kinetic energy store extends KS2 US understanding that faster-moving objects have more energy
- Naming types of energyREQUIRED
Identifying energy stores and transfer pathways is a formalisation of the energy type vocabulary introduced earlier
- Greenhouse Gas Science
KS3 energy stores and radiation transfer provides the physics vocabulary for explaining how greenhouse gases re-emit infrared
- How energy travels aroundREQUIRED
KS3 energy stores model extends KS2 US observation that energy is transferred by sound, light, heat and electric currents
Unlocks next
- Energy can't be created or destroyedREQUIRED
Conservation of energy is a property of energy stores and transfers — the stores and pathways model must be established first
- Renewable vs non-renewable energy
Energy resources convert between energy stores — understanding the energy stores model gives the conceptual framework for comparing resources
- Conduction, convection, and radiationREQUIRED
Conduction, convection and radiation are three of the pathways for energy transfer by heating — the stores/transfers framework provides the structure