Have you are burned something on the stove or in the oven? Do you know why things burn? It all has to do with temperature. Changes in matter are affected by temperature. For example, what if you place a cake in the oven and you leave it in too long? What do you think will happen? Thats right, it will probably burn. The same thing will happen if the oven setting is too high and you apply too much heat. In either case, heat has affected the rate of change in matter. Its probably obvious that when the temperature is increased a chemical change, like cooking, will occur faster. What about a physical change? Are physical changes affected by temperature? Most of us have seen steam rising off a wet road after a summer rainstorm. This happens because the road surface is very warm. The warm road and warm air temperature causes the water to evaporate quickly. The liquid water is turning into water vapor, but it is still water. The evaporation of water is a physical change. So yes, temperature affects the rate that physical change occurs.

Question: "What is the physical change in temperature we see during the summer and how does it occur?"

Response: "Steam rising off a wet road"
OPTIONS:
- no
- yes

A: yes

Earth processes have not changed over time. The way things happen now is the same way things happened in the past. Mountains grow and mountains slowly wear away. The same process is at work the same as it was billions of years ago. As the environment changes, living creatures adapt. They change over time. Some organisms may not be able to adapt. They become extinct. Becoming extinct means they die out completely. Some geologists study the history of the Earth. They want to learn about Earths past. They use clues from rocks and fossils. They use these clues to make sense of events. The goal is to place things in the order they happened. They also want to know how long it took for those events to happen.

Question: "What purpose do rocks and fossils serve?"

Response: "Energy"
OPTIONS:
- no
- yes

A: no

The center of an atom is held together by powerful forces. This gives them a huge amount of stored energy. This type of energy is called nuclear energy. This energy can be released and used to do work. This happens in nuclear power plants where they split apart the nucleus of an atom. This splitting apart is called nuclear fission. Another type of nuclear energy happens in the Sun. Here the atoms nuclei are not split apart. Instead, the nuclei of the atoms are fused, or joined together. This process is called nuclear fusion. Some of the suns energy travels to Earth. This energy from nuclear fusion warms the planet and provides the energy for photosynthesis.

Question: "Some of the Sun's energy travels to Earth and becomes energy for what process?"

Response: "kinetic energy"
OPTIONS:
- no
- yes

A:
no