Interactions in the Environment
This term describes all the living and non-living things interacting in a particular environment.
What is an ecosystem?
This is anything that has mass and takes up space.
What is matter?
A house, bridge, chair, or tower can all be described using this general science term.
What is a structure?
This form of energy is associated with the movement of particles in matter.
What is heat?
A scientist notices that the ice in one cup melts faster than the ice in another cup. This is an example of this first step in scientific investigation.
What is an observation?
Trees, rabbits, mushrooms, and bacteria are examples of these components of an ecosystem.
What are biotic factors?
Air, salt water, and trail mix are all examples of this because they contain more than one substance.
What is a mixture?
A bicycle frame and the framework of a skyscraper are examples of this type of structure.
What is a frame structure?
When you touch a hot metal spoon and heat travels through the spoon to your hand, this method of heat transfer is occurring.
What is conduction?
A student asks, “Does the amount of sunlight a plant receives affect how quickly it grows?” This is an example of this.
What is a testable/scientific question?
Rocks, sunlight, temperature, water, and soil are examples of these non-living components.
What are abiotic factors?
This type of mixture looks the same throughout, such as salt completely dissolved in water.
What is a homogeneous mixture?
An egg, football helmet, and many sea creatures are examples of this type of structure.
What is a shell structure?
This method of heat transfer occurs when warmer fluids move and transfer heat through liquids or gases.
What is convection?
A student thinks that plants given more sunlight will grow taller. Before testing the idea, the student writes this type of prediction based on previous scientific knowledge.
What is a hypothesis?
In a food chain, plants have this role because they make their own food and provide energy for other organisms.
What are producers?
This theory explains that all matter is made of tiny particles that are always moving.
What is the particle theory of matter?
This is the point in a structure where its mass can be considered to be concentrated and it plays an important role in stability.
What is the centre of gravity?
Energy from the Sun travels through space to Earth mainly through this method of heat transfer.
What is radiation?
Two students are testing which type of paper towel absorbs the most water. To make their comparison fair, they should use the same amount of water, same size of paper towel, and same method of testing. These are examples of keeping these the same.
What are controlled variables?
If a disease dramatically reduces the rabbit population in a grassland, this could eventually affect the fox population. This is because organisms in an ecosystem are connected through these relationships.
What are food chains/food webs?
A student has a mixture of sand, salt, and water. To separate all three substances, they could first use this process to remove the sand and then use this process to separate the salt from the water.
What are filtration and evaporation?
A tall tower is redesigned with a wider base and its heaviest materials moved lower. This change is primarily intended to improve this property of the structure.
What is stability?
Earth's atmosphere contains gases that absorb and re-emit some outgoing radiation, helping keep Earth warmer. These gases are commonly called this.
What are greenhouse gases?
A scientist performs an experiment three times and gets very similar results each time. This makes the scientist more confident in the results because the investigation is showing this quality.
What is reliability?