Teacher's Guide

EF-C2.1

Energy makes the world go round

All around us things are happening - people are moving and talking, cars and buses may be moving about, lights and heaters are giving out light and heat. All these things happen because of energy. Energy is what makes things happen all over the Earth and the Universe.

Energy is needed to make cars go, to heat and light our homes and workplaces and to keep our bodies working.

1. In previous units the idea of sound being a form of energy will have been introduced but the children may need reminding of this. You need to show the children that sound is a movement of air. Try putting some grains of rice on the surface of a small drum. When the surface is tapped the children hear the sound and can see the rice jumping up and down. In the first lesson, energy was given as the thing that makes things happen so sound is the form of energy which makes air vibrate.

We can store energy in various ways to have it available when we need it. Batteries are a form of storing energy which the children will be familiar with. electrical energy is stored in batteries in a chemical form (the word ‘chemical’ can be a difficult word for the children to understand and at this stage can be related to a ‘potion’ which the children will be familiar with in their stories). They will understand that when a battery is put into a Walkman for example it gives it the energy to play. Once the energy is used up the Walkman will not work. If the battery is re-chargeable then it can be given another dose of energy from the mains supply.

Solar panels can be bought from educational suppliers which on a sunny day can run a small motor with a propeller attached or similar electrical apparatus.

Wind up toys are another useful example, where the energy to run the toy comes from your hand when it turns the key and is stored in a metal spring.

Worksheet C14a (G) can be used here to record some energy changes.

Food is the stuff in which our energy can be stored. When we are running low on energy we can eat food to give us more. Our bodies can store some energy so we don’t need to eat every time we want to move!

Moving things have energy of their own. They are given it by something else - a ball will not start rolling unless you give it some energy in the form of a push.

Worksheet C14b (G) ‘Energy in my Day’ can be used to record some of the different types of energy the children use during their own activities.