Science

An animal is albino if it is missing the brown pigment in their skin and hair that would otherwise make them a normal color. Albino animals are usually pure white with pink or pale blue eyes. Albino animals don't usually live very long in the wild as they do not camouflage very well. Albino and white animals are also prone to sunburn. Albino rabbits are very common as pets. The albino in the picture is a squirrel.

Something boils when it becomes so hot it changes from liquid to a gas. The picture is of some water boiling on a stove top. You can see the gas being made, in the form of bubbles in the water.

People boil water so they can make soup or tea or coffee.

A burst is when something suddenly pops open, usually because the pressure inside builds up too high for the container holding it. Bursting is used to describe new buds bursting into life, or fireworks bursting, or a bubble or balloon popping.

Condensation forms when water vapour hits a cool surface and turns back into water. You often see condensation on a cold drink bottle, or on the inside of your windows on a cold morning. Condensation outside is often called dew.

If you have two things that are the same size, and one weighs a lot more than the other, the heavy thing is more dense.

The sponge on the left in the picture is much, much lighter than the brick in the picture, but they are around the same size. The sponge has a lower density than the brick.

An echo is reflected sound. You get echos most often in enclosed spaces with hard walls, like an empty room with wooden floors, or the inside of a large concrete pipe like in the picture. If you make a noise in a place like this, the noise you make sounds like it is being repeated back at you again and again, getting quieter each time.

Evaporation is the process of a liquid slowly turning into a gas. You see evaporation in everyday life when you hang out washing (laundry) or something else wet to dry. Evaporation happens when the molecules in the liquid get enough energy - usually from sunlight - to break through the surface of the liquid and float away. You can see the fist in the picture is steaming as the water from a hot shower evaporates away.

When something explodes it suddenly gets bigger. Explosions usually make a loud noise and make a lot of heat. Popcorn popping is an example of a small explosion, and a bomb going off is an example of a large one. Large explosions can create so much force they can reduce buildings to rubble.

When something is burning, it is said to be on fire. Flames can be different colours depending on what is burning and how hot it is. Fire is very hot and bright, and people light fires in their houses to keep warm.

When a fire is out of control it can be extremely dangerous, as the photo of a forest fire shows.

When something burns it gives off gas and particles as smoke. It gives off heat because burning is an exothermic reaction, which means it creates heat as it happens. Some things like boiling water are the opposite, and need heat to happen.

Something floats if you put it on the top of a liquid like water and it stays on the top.

Things float because they are less dense than the liquid they are in. For example, the duck in the picture floats because the amount of duck that is below the water level weighs less than the amount of water that would be where the duck is - a concept called displacement.

If you are in a swimming pool with a foam kickboard that floats, try holding it under the water. You can also try this with a ping-pong ball or a polystyrene foam ball in a big bowl of water. It is very hard to get something that floats to go under the water, and if you hold it right down and then let it go it might even pop right out of the water! It is this force that holds floating things up.

The opposite of float is sink.