Energy Transfer
A baseball arrives at one speed and leaves the bat much faster. Nothing made new energy. So where did all that extra motion come from?
What You'll Be Able to Do
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:
- State what students will be able to do.
- Set a clear target before content begins.
- Goal setting
- Advance organizers
- Understand to Analyze
- DOK 1 to 3
- Plain "I can" statements
- Standard code shown for reference
- Short, scannable cards
Words You'll Meet
Choose a card to see what each word means.
- Front-load the terms students will meet.
- Lower the language barrier before reading.
- Pre-teaching vocabulary
- Reduced extraneous load
- Remember to Understand
- DOK 1
- One card open at a time
- Click to reveal, no hover
- Plain, short definitions
Faster Out Than In
A pitched baseball is already moving fast when it reaches the plate. After it meets the bat, it flies away even faster. The ball did not make that extra speed on its own.
Where Did the Extra Motion Come From?
Watch a batter make contact. The ball comes in fast, the bat swings to meet it, and in a split second the ball rockets back out at a higher speed than it arrived. The ball did not suddenly create its own energy. Something happened in that collision. So where did the extra motion come from?
The best answer is B. Energy is not created out of nothing, and it does not vanish and return. The swinging bat carries energy of motion, and when it strikes the ball, some of that energy transfers into the ball. The ball's motion increases because energy moved into it. To prove that, we follow the kinetic energy, which is exactly where this lesson goes next.
- Anchor the lesson in a real phenomenon: a bat-and-ball collision.
- Raise a question students will want answered.
- Curiosity gap
- Phenomenon-based learning
- Understand
- DOK 2
- Concrete, familiar example
- Short framing text
- Visual anchor
What Is Energy Transfer?
You already know energy comes in different forms and can change from one form to another. Now we focus on something simpler and more direct: energy moving from one object to another.
Energy cannot be created or destroyed. But it can move. When one object gives energy to another, the first object ends up with less and the second ends up with more. The total amount of energy stays the same. It has simply changed location.
To see this clearly, scientists pick a system, the set of objects they want to study together. Then they watch the energy move between the parts of that system.
Energy transfer is the movement of energy from one object to another. When energy transfers, the amount of energy each object has changes. One object gains energy and another loses the same amount.
Kinetic energy is the energy an object has because of its motion. The faster an object moves, the more kinetic energy it has. This is the kind of energy we will track all lesson, because changes in motion are easy to see and measure.
A system is the group of objects you choose to study together. In the opening example, the system is the bat and the ball. Drawing a circle around a system helps you track exactly where energy goes.
- Define energy transfer before applying it.
- Distinguish transfer (object to object) from transformation (form to form).
- Prior knowledge activation (forms of energy)
- Building on conservation of energy
- Understand
- DOK 1 to 2
- Key terms defined in place
- Short paragraphs
- One clear pattern stated
Energy on the Move
A collision is one of the clearest places to see energy transfer. Two objects touch, push on each other, and energy moves between them. Click an example to follow the energy.
- Show energy transfer across multiple collisions.
- Build a repeatable pattern students can generalize.
- Multiple worked examples
- Dual coding with the interactive diagram
- Pattern recognition across cases
- Understand to Apply
- DOK 2
- Click to reveal each case, no hover
- Labeled diagram paired with text
- Parallel, familiar examples
Speeding Up and Slowing Down
Kinetic energy depends on motion, so watching an object's speed tells you what is happening to its energy. A change in speed is the visible sign of a change in kinetic energy.
- A skateboard rolls faster down a ramp
- Energy was transferred to the object
- More speed means more kinetic energy
- A rolling ball slows and stops on grass
- Energy was transferred away from the object
- Less speed means less kinetic energy
You do not need special tools to detect energy transfer. You can read it from the motion. If an object speeds up, energy was transferred into it. If an object slows down, energy was transferred out of it.
When a rolling ball slows and stops, its kinetic energy did not vanish. It transferred to the ground and the air through friction. The energy moved out of the ball and into its surroundings.
- Link the measurable variable (speed) to kinetic energy.
- Make energy transfer observable, not abstract.
- Comparison and contrast (speeding up vs slowing down)
- Concrete to abstract
- Understand to Analyze
- DOK 2
- Side-by-side comparison cards
- Short, parallel bullet lists
- Plain causal language
Backing Up the Claim
In science, saying that energy transferred is a claim. A claim is only as strong as the evidence behind it. The standard for this lesson asks you to support claims about energy transfer with evidence.
A claim is a statement that answers a question, such as "energy was transferred to the ball." Evidence is the observation or measurement that supports it, such as "the ball's speed increased after the bat hit it." A measured change in kinetic energy is strong evidence that energy transferred.
Claim: Energy transferred out of the ball.
Evidence: The ball was moving, then it slowed and stopped. Its speed dropped to zero, so its kinetic energy decreased. Energy did not disappear. It transferred to the ground and air through friction.
Claim: Energy transferred into the skateboard.
Evidence: The skateboard rolled faster and faster as it went down. Its speed increased, so its kinetic energy increased. That gain in kinetic energy is evidence that energy was transferred to it.
- Practice the core skill of 7.MS-PS3-5: argue from evidence.
- Model claim-and-evidence reasoning explicitly.
- Worked examples of argumentation
- Making thinking visible
- Analyze to Evaluate
- DOK 2 to 3
- Consistent claim-evidence structure
- Familiar examples
- Short, labeled paragraphs
Three Collisions, One Pattern
Let's trace cause and effect through three familiar collisions. In each one, a moving object transfers energy to a slower object, and you can see the result in the motion.
- Generalize the model across cases.
- Make the cause-and-effect chain explicit.
- Interleaved examples
- Cause-and-effect modeling
- Transfer to new contexts
- Apply to Analyze
- DOK 2
- Parallel cause-effect labels
- Familiar sports examples
- Short, scannable items
Brain Check
Three quick questions before we put it all together. These are not graded. Pulling answers from memory now will help them stick.
- Strengthen memory through retrieval before the wrap-up.
- Surface misconceptions early.
- Retrieval practice
- Generation effect
- Productive struggle
- Understand to Apply
- DOK 1 to 2
- Ungraded and low stakes
- Immediate feedback
- Short tasks reduce load
Following the Energy
You started with a question: where did the baseball's extra motion come from? Now you can trace the whole chain, step by step.
- Tie the pieces into one cause-and-effect chain.
- Answer the opening question directly.
- Schema building
- Elaboration
- Coherent narrative
- Understand to Analyze
- DOK 3
- Step-by-step beats
- Plain causal language
- Builds on prior sections
Check Your Understanding
Ten questions covering everything you explored, from kinetic energy to collisions to claims and evidence. Answer every question, then submit.
Scientists don't just know the answer. They explain their thinking.
Write your own explanation first. Then submit your work to compare your thinking with a model answer.
In one or two sentences, explain how the baseball ends up moving faster after it meets the bat. Trace the energy from the bat to the ball, and explain what the ball's change in speed proves. Use the word transferred.
- End the lesson with the student building the energy-transfer chain in their own words, not selecting it.
- Give the one place where the student generates rather than clicks.
- Generation effect and self-explanation
- Cause and effect: tracing energy from bat to ball
- Self-check reveal for comparison, ungraded
- Analyze to Evaluate
- DOK 3
- Short response, one or two sentences
- Keyword scaffold provided
- Model answer revealed after submitting
- Check understanding against the lesson goals.
- Give students and teachers a clear signal.
- Retrieval practice
- Feedback loops
- Understand to Apply
- DOK 1 to 2
- Answer explanations provided
- Practice and classroom modes
- Plausible, evenly placed options
More Learning
The lesson is just the beginning. Dig deeper into how kinetic energy moves between objects during collisions, and how a change in motion becomes evidence of energy transfer. More investigations, simulations, and challenges are coming soon.
- Offer pathways beyond the core lesson.
- Signal that learning continues past the quiz.
- Interest-driven extension
- Transfer to new contexts
- Apply to Analyze
- DOK 2 to 3
- Optional and self-paced
- Clear labels for what is available
- No penalty for skipping
Connections
Energy rarely stays put. These lessons explain the forms energy takes and the different ways it moves from one place to another.