Energy and Waves Vocabulary

Vocabulary flashcards covering forms of potential and kinetic energy, systems, circuits, food webs, photosynthesis, and wave types based on the lecture notes.

Chemical Potential Energy

Energy stored in chemicals, like food or fuel, that gets released when those chemicals change or react to become something else.

Elastic Potential Energy

The energy stored in something stretchy, like a rubber band, when it’s stretched or squished and then let go.

Gravitational Potential Energy

Energy that an object has because of its height, such as holding a ball up high where it has energy because of gravity pulling it down.

Kinetic Energy

The energy something has because it’s moving; the faster it moves, the more kinetic energy it has.

Electrical Circuit

A path, like a loop, that electricity flows through, requiring the path to be complete, or closed, for electricity to work.

Food Web

A model that shows how energy and nutrients move between different living things in an ecosystem, like plants, animals, and decomposers (things that break down dead stuff).

Photosynthesis

The process plants use to make food from sunlight by taking in water and carbon dioxide and turning it into food (sugar) and oxygen.

System

A group of things that work together and affect each other, such as a school composed of students, teachers, and classrooms.

Longitudinal Wave

A type of wave where particles move back and forth in the same direction as the wave is moving, like sound waves.

Transverse Wave

A type of wave where particles move up and down while the wave itself moves forward, like waves on the surface of water.