Forms of Energy
A roller coaster sits still at the top of a hill, then races down in a blur. Nothing was added, yet everything changed. Energy was at work the whole time.
What You'll Be Able to Do
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:
- State what students will be able to do.
- Set a clear target before content begins.
- Goal setting
- Advance organizers
- Understand to Analyze
- DOK 1 to 3
- Plain "I can" statements
- Standard code shown for reference
- Short, scannable cards
Words You'll Meet
Choose a card to see what each word means.
- Front-load the terms students will meet.
- Lower the language barrier before reading.
- Pre-teaching vocabulary
- Reduced extraneous load
- Remember to Understand
- DOK 1
- One card open at a time
- Click to reveal, no hover
- Plain, short definitions
Still at the Top, Flying at the Bottom
A roller coaster car is towed slowly to the top of the first hill and pauses. Then it drops, screaming down the track faster and faster. No engine pushes it down. So where does all that motion come from?
Motion From Nowhere?
At the top of the hill the car is barely moving, yet something powerful is waiting inside it. As it rushes down, it gains speed, and at the bottom you can hear the roar and feel the heat in the wheels. Nothing was added at the top. The energy was already there, just in a different form, waiting to change.
The best answer is B. At the top of the hill, the car holds stored energy because of its high position. As it drops, that stored energy changes into energy of motion. No energy was created or lost. It simply changed form. To understand the roller coaster, and almost everything else around you, we need to look at the forms energy takes and how it moves between them.
- Anchor the lesson in a familiar phenomenon.
- Raise a question students will want answered.
- Curiosity gap
- Phenomenon-based learning
- Understand
- DOK 2
- Concrete, familiar example
- Short framing text
- Visual anchor
Need a Refresher?
This lesson builds on ideas you may have seen before. Two of the forms of energy ahead, sound and light, travel as waves, which you explored back in Grade 6.
Waves carry energy from one place to another without carrying matter along with them. If how a wave moves energy feels fuzzy, review this lesson before continuing. It will make sound energy and electromagnetic energy easier to picture.
Review Lesson →- Reactivate Grade 6 knowledge of waves.
- Bridge prior learning to new Grade 7 content.
- Retrieval of prior knowledge
- Building on existing schema
- Remember to Understand
- DOK 1
- Optional, not required
- Clear link to the prior lesson
- Short explanation of why it helps
Stored and Moving
Before we can follow energy as it changes, we need a clear definition and a way to sort it. Almost all energy falls into one of two big families.
Energy is the ability to cause change or to do work. Every time something heats up, speeds up, lights up, or makes a sound, energy is at work. Energy comes in many forms and has many effects.
Scientists measure energy in a unit called the joule, written with the symbol J. Whether it is the energy in a battery or the energy of a moving car, it can all be measured in joules.
Potential energy is stored energy. An object can store energy because of its position, its condition, or its chemical makeup. The roller coaster at the top of the hill has potential energy because of its high position. It is energy that is ready to be used later.
Kinetic energy is the energy of motion. Anything that moves has kinetic energy. The amount of kinetic energy depends on the object's mass and its speed. A heavier object, or a faster one, carries more kinetic energy.
- Stored and ready to use
- Depends on position, condition, or chemistry
- Example: a ball held up high, a stretched rubber band, food
- The energy of motion
- Depends on mass and speed
- Example: a rolling ball, a running person, falling water
- Define energy before naming any form.
- Establish the potential and kinetic split as an organizer.
- Concept formation
- Compare and contrast
- Dual coding with the comparison cards
- Understand to Apply
- DOK 1 to 2
- Everyday examples for each type
- Side-by-side comparison cards
- Key terms defined in place
Many Forms, One Idea
Energy shows up in many forms. Each form is still either stored (potential) or moving (kinetic). Click a form to explore what it is and where you see it.
- Survey the forms of energy in one place.
- Tie each form back to the potential or kinetic split.
- Categorization
- Dual coding with the interactive selector
- Pattern recognition
- Remember to Understand
- DOK 1 to 2
- Click to reveal each form, no hover
- Each form tagged potential or kinetic
- Familiar examples in plain language
When Energy Changes Form
Energy rarely stays in one form for long. The most interesting things happen when it changes, and this is exactly what powers the world around you.
An energy transformation happens when energy changes from one form to another. The amount of energy does not change, only its form. The roller coaster turns potential energy into kinetic energy, and a flashlight turns chemical energy into light.
Here are everyday examples. Follow each arrow as one form of energy becomes another.
- Show energy moving between forms in real systems.
- Connect transformations back to the phenomenon.
- Cause-and-effect modeling
- Worked examples
- Dual coding with energy chains
- Understand to Analyze
- DOK 2 to 3
- Familiar, concrete examples
- Color-coded, scannable chains
- Short labels with clear arrows
Nothing Is Lost
If energy keeps changing form, you might wonder whether some of it disappears. It does not. One powerful rule explains why.
The law of conservation of energy states that energy cannot be created or destroyed. It only changes from one form into another. The total amount of energy in a system stays the same before and after a transformation.
At the top of the hill, the car is full of potential energy and has almost no kinetic energy. As it drops, the potential energy shrinks while the kinetic energy grows by the same amount. At the bottom, most of the energy is now kinetic.
Add the potential and kinetic energy together at any point and you get nearly the same total. Some energy also turns into thermal energy and sound from friction with the track and air. None of it vanishes. It is all still there, just spread across different forms.
- State the rule that ties transformations together.
- Resolve the misconception that energy is used up.
- Misconception checking
- Principle-based reasoning
- Closure on the phenomenon
- Understand to Analyze
- DOK 2 to 3
- Plain causal explanation
- Returns to the familiar roller coaster
- Rule stated clearly and restated
Brain Check
Three quick questions before we put it all together. These are not graded. Pulling answers from memory now will help them stick.
- Strengthen memory through retrieval before the wrap-up.
- Surface misconceptions early.
- Retrieval practice
- Generation effect
- Productive struggle
- Understand to Apply
- DOK 1 to 2
- Ungraded and low stakes
- Immediate feedback
- Short tasks reduce load
From Stored to Moving and Beyond
You started with a question: where does the roller coaster's motion come from if nothing pushes it? Now you can trace the whole story, step by step.
- Tie the pieces into one cause-and-effect chain.
- Answer the opening question directly.
- Schema building
- Elaboration
- Coherent narrative
- Understand to Analyze
- DOK 3
- Step-by-step beats
- Plain causal language
- Builds on prior sections
Check Your Understanding
Ten questions covering everything you explored, from potential and kinetic energy to transformations and conservation. Answer every question, then submit.
Scientists don't just know the answer. They explain their thinking.
Write your own explanation first. Then submit your work to compare your thinking with a model answer.
In one or two sentences, trace the roller coaster's energy from the top of the hill to the bottom. Name the forms it changes into, and explain why the total amount of energy never changes. Use the word conserved.
- End the lesson with the student building the transformation chain in their own words, not selecting it.
- Give the one place where the student generates rather than clicks.
- Generation effect and self-explanation
- Cause and effect: tracing energy from stored to moving
- Self-check reveal for comparison, ungraded
- Analyze to Evaluate
- DOK 3
- Short response, one or two sentences
- Keyword scaffold provided
- Model answer revealed after submitting
- Check understanding against the lesson goals.
- Give students and teachers a clear signal.
- Retrieval practice
- Feedback loops
- Understand to Apply
- DOK 1 to 2
- Answer explanations provided
- Practice and classroom modes
- Plausible, evenly placed options
More Learning
The lesson is just the beginning. Dig deeper into potential energy, kinetic energy, and the energy transformations that keep the total amount conserved. More investigations, simulations, and challenges are coming soon.
- Offer pathways beyond the core lesson.
- Signal that learning continues past the quiz.
- Interest-driven extension
- Transfer to new contexts
- Apply to Analyze
- DOK 2 to 3
- Optional and self-paced
- Clear labels for what is available
- No penalty for skipping
Connections
Energy is the same idea showing up in many disguises. These lessons follow what happens once energy starts to move and change form.