Nature of Science
This experimental variable is measured or observed in the experiment.
What is the dependent variable?
The ability to do work.
What is energy?
A disturbance that carries energy (but not particles) from one place to another in an oscillating pattern.
What is a wave?
Where light bounces off of a surface.
What is reflection?
People often say this increases as the speed of particles in a substance increase. More specifically, this measures the average kinetic energy of particles.
What is temperature?
What is the independent variable?
This form of energy increases as the height and/or mass of an object increases.
What is gravitational potential energy?
This type of wave needs a medium (substance) to travel through.
What is a sound/mechanical wave?
What is light going through a substance?
A form of heat transfer that can carry energy without a medium to travel through.
What is radiation?
A scientist uses one of her five senses to collect this before designing an experiment.
What is an observation?
A type of potential energy; this is stored in the bonds of molecules.
What is chemical energy?
This measurement between the two crests (peaks) of a wave decreases as the frequency of the wave decreases.
What is wavelength?
A range of wavelengths of light, including radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet light, x-rays, and gamma rays.
What is the electromagnetic spectrum?
The flow of thermal energy from hotter to cooler substances.
What is heat?
The process where a scientist repeats an experiment exactly as another scientist did to verify the results.
What is replication?
This law predicts the behavior of many processes and machines. The amount of energy that starts out in a system will not change unless it can be transformed or transferred somewhere else.
What is the Law of Energy Conservation?
The measurement from the middle of a wave to the trough (bottom) or crest (top); in sound waves, this determines how loud the sound is.
What is amplitude?
A type of electromagnetic radiation that allows humans to see a spectrum of different colors.
What is visible light?
A form of heat transfer that involves direct touch through a solid.
What is conduction?
A “standard” or something normal that manipulated groups are compared to in an experiment.
What is the control / control variable?
This term means energy is changed from one form into another.
What is energy transformation?
The speed of light is slowest in this material, while the speed of sound is the fastest.
What is a solid?
Where light changes speed as it enters a new medium.
What is refraction?
This is where warm gasses or liquids rise and cold gasses or liquids sink in a circular pattern, respectively, because the warmer particles are less dense.
What is a convection current?