up to Nature

Science

Simple scientific concepts that can be little tricky to explain, but we've tried our best.

Showing 1-20 of 36

Ais forAlbino

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.

Bis forBoil

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.

Bis forBurst

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.

Dis forDensity

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.

Dis forDissolve

You dissolve a solid in a liquid by mixing the solid around until it seems to disappear. Once the solid is completely dissolved, the resulting solution behaves exactly like a liquid. Solids won't dissolve in any liquid, they must be soluble in them. For example, table salt is soluble in water but not in oil.
Solids that do not dissolve in a liquid but are mixed into a liquid can be removed with a filter. Filtering is an effective way to remove very fine particles of dirt from water.

Eis forEcho

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.
Electricity is the flow of charged particles through a conducting material, usually copper. Electricity is used for a huge variety of things today, with virtually all modern devices powered by it.
Electricity is used to make many common things around you work, such as your refrigerator, modern watches, computers and phones.
Electricity can be stored inside a battery to be used later.
You may also be interested in static electricity or lightning, two other effects of electricity.
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.

Fis forFloat

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.
A focal point is where rays of light converge into a single point. The glass inside a magnifying glass is curved so that it bends all the light that goes through it towards a central point. If you move a magnifying glass up and down in the sun, you will find that at a particular distance away the magnifying glass makes a pinpoint of light that is hot enough to set something on fire. This is called the focal point.

Fis forFreeze

When something liquid changes into a solid, the process is called freezing. We see the liquid water turn to solid ice all the time. Water turns to ice when it snows, hails, or when we make icecubes in the freezer.
The photo is of some ice crystals forming as water freezes.

Fis forFriction

Friction is a force that resists against two surfaces sliding across each other. The rougher the surfaces are the more friction they will encounter, and the smoother the surfaces the less friction there will be.
Friction is a very important force, and many of your day to day activities rely on friction. You walk around easily because of the friction between the ground and your feet. When you are on a low-friction surface like ice you will find it hard to walk, and you are likely to fall over.
The man in the picture is able to climb the rope because of the friction between his hands and the rope.

Fis forFrozen

Something is frozen if it has been made so cold that it goes solid. When water is frozen it turns to ice. The photo is of some frozen vegetables.

Gis forGas

Gas is a state that substances can be in. Other states substances can be in are liquid and solid. The air around you is a mix of gases, and when you boil water the bubbles are the water itself turning from a liquid into a gas. Helium balloons are filled with another gas that most people are familiar with - helium is lighter than air so helium balloons rise up.

Gis forGears

Gears are wheels with small teeth called cogs that interlock together. Gears are used to change the speed and direction of rotation of a gear that is driven by something, to where it needs to be used.

Gis forGravity

Gravity is a force that pulls things with mass together. For most people, this simply means that anything you lift away from the surface of the Earth will fall down again when you let it go.

Lis forLaser

A laser is a light source that either emits or converts emitted light to coherent light. This means that the light from the laser is all going in the one direction, with the light waves in synch.
Lasers have many, many uses in science and medicine. Less powerful lasers are also commonly used in laser pointers for pointing out words on a screen or whiteboard, and used to make light shows in nightclubs, as seen in the picture.

Lis forLight

Light is a type of energy that makes you able to see things. Things like light bulbs, candles and the sun emit light.
Things that don't emit light reflect light, which makes you able to see them.