Lesson 1 Energy Flow in Technological Systems

  Introduction

What is energy, how can it be used to our advantage, and how can we ensure usable energy is not lost?

One of the driving forces of new technologies has always been to create a device that makes our lives easier. Humans learned early on that they can capture the energy from a natural source, such as the sun or moving water, with little effort. They also learned that burning a substance could provide even more usable energy.

In this section of Unit C, we will look at how the concept of energy developed from observations of heat and mechanical devices and how energy exists in a variety of forms. We will also learn what pieces of evidence tell us that energy is present.

  Targets

By the end of this section, you will be able to

1. explain what energy is and use examples from natural and technological systems to describe different forms of energy and evidence for the presence of energy
   

2. explain that work done on a system is a change in energy and force is a push or pull
   

3. relate gravitational potential energy to work done and describe kinetic energy as energy due to motion
   

4. relate kinetic energy and gravitational potential energy to energy conservation in energy changes