Energy

All Lessons

NYSSLS Reading Passages: Energy

Energy The Weight of Heat: A Honeymoon, a Waterfall, and the Law That Changed Physics
Joule's paddlewheel apparatus: falling weights turn brass paddles inside an insulated cask of water, converting potential energy into kinetic energy and then into thermal energy, W = JQ
The story of James Prescott Joule: a six-foot thermometer, a honeymoon in the French Alps, and a waterfall he and William Thomson tried to warm on purpose — the strange, patient path to proving that heat is motion, not a fluid, and that energy is never created or destroyed. 3 multiple-choice and 3 extended-response questions. Open Reading Passage
Energy The Pendulum Through History: How a Simple Swing Changed Science
Keeping Accurate Time: Galileo and Huygens, 1600s. A pendulum clock with its escapement and pendulum labeled, a simple pendulum of length L, and the formula T = 2 pi times the square root of L over g
One simple device, six turning points in science — from a bronze seismoscope that caught an earthquake no one felt, to Galileo timing a swaying chandelier, to Foucault proving Earth turns without ever looking at the sky. A one-period reading with 2 multiple-choice and 4 extended-response questions. Open Reading Passage