Building Bridges
Gravity pulling down on your bridge or a car driving across it are examples of this type of force.
What is an external force?
When you pull back the arm of your popsicle stick catapult, you are storing this type of energy.
What is potential or stored energy?
In your Minecraft world, "blocks" like coal and oil are examples of this type of resource that cannot be replaced once used.
What are non-renewable resources?)
This is the primary source of almost all energy on Earth, including the energy stored in plants.
What is the Sun?
If your popsicle stick catapult snaps, it has reached its "point of ____."
What is failure?
When you push down on a bridge beam, the particles inside are being squeezed together. Name this internal force.
What is compression?
This is the specific type of potential energy stored in the "bend" or "stretch" of the popsicle sticks.
What is elastic energy?
Solar panels and wind turbines use these types of resources that can be replenished naturally.
What are renewable resources?
True or False: Energy can be destroyed if we use too much of it.
What is False? Energy can only be transformed or transferred.
Which bridge shape is the strongest for distributing forces: a square or a triangle?
What is a triangle?
This internal force occurs when the bottom of your bridge deck is being pulled apart or stretched.
What is tension?
When you release the catapult and the projectile flies through the air, the stored energy has turned into this energy of motion.
What is kinetic energy?
This non-renewable resource, common in Alberta, is often found in Minecraft as a black ore used for smelting.
What is coal?
These gases, like CO2, trap heat in the atmosphere and are a major focus of energy management in Alberta.
What are greenhouse gases?
If you are building a "Green Minecraft City," name one environmental "con" of using a large-scale hydroelectric dam.
What is habitat destruction or flooding?
If a bridge deck slides or slips in opposite directions (like scissors cutting paper), it is experiencing this internal force.
What is shear?
This law of physics explains why your catapult pushes back against your hand with the same amount of force you use to hold it.
What is Newton’s Third Law of Motion?
Generating energy from moving water (like a waterfall in Minecraft) is called this.
What is hydroelectric energy?
This is the term for energy that has been changed from its raw state (like crude oil) into a usable form (like gasoline).
What is processed energy?
In your catapult experiment, the "variable" that you changed (like the number of rubber bands) is called dependent, independent or controlled variable.
What is independent variable?
Your bridge remains standing because it is in this state, where all internal and external forces are balanced.
What is equilibrium?
To make your catapult launch further, you need to increase the distance the arm travels. This "fixed point" that the arm rotates around is called what?
What is the fulcrum?
This is the term for managing our resources wisely so that future generations (or players) still have enough to use.
What is sustainability?
When energy changes from one form to another, some of it is often "lost" to the environment as this.
Name one way Alberta is currently "restoring" land after mining for non-renewable resources.
What is reclamation?