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Knowledge and Skills Statement

Force, motion, and energy. The student knows that the total energy in systems is conserved through energy transfers and transformations.

Energy manifests in multiple phenomena such as motion, light, sound, electrical and magnetic fields, and thermal energy.  Energy can be modeled as either motions of particles or as stored in force fields (electric, magnetic, gravitational) that mediate interactions between particles. The total amount of energy in a system does not change, but it can be transferred between objects within the system.

a closed (complete) path for electric current to flow as a result of a driving voltage

model that demonstrates how matter and energy are transferred between producers (generally plants and other organisms that engage in photosynthesis), consumers (herbivores, omnivores, carnivores), and decomposers as the three groups interact—primarily for food—within an ecosystem

the chemical process by which plants and other photosynthetic organisms produce their own source of energy (food) using energy from sunlight to convert carbon dioxide and water into oxygen and glucose (food)

regularly interacting or interdependent group of items forming a unified whole

Research

Kolb, Jennifer. “Hunting for Energy.” Science and Children 47, no. 4 (December 2009): 42–44. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43174677.

Summary: The article "Hunting for Energy" explores and highlights a variety of energy transfers. "Science 101" provides support for understanding that as energy transfers, it may appear that energy is not conserved; however, some energy transfers out of the system through heat and other degraded forms.