acid
Something that is sour.
amplifier
Something that amplifies, or increases, current, voltage, or power.
atmosphere
A layer of air surrounding the planet.
attract
To pull toward oneself, like two magnets with opposite poles facing each other.
buoyancy
An upward force exerted on an object that is equal to the weight of the water displaced by the object.
carbon dioxide (CO2)
A colorless, odorless gas that is found in carbonated sodas.
carnivore
An animal that eats other animals.
charge
A specific amount of electricity.
chemical change
A chemical process by which a new substance is created.
classification
The careful arrangement of information into categories.
climate
The average pattern of weather in a certain area.
colorblindness
The inability to see one or more colors.
community
A group that interacts and lives in a common area.
condensation
The process by which water changes from a gas to a liquid.
coniferous
Evergreen trees and shrubs that have needles instead of leaves.
consumer
An organism that consumes, or eats, another organism in a food chain.
dactyloscopy
Fingerprint identification.
deciduous
Trees that shed their leaves in fall and grow new ones in spring.
echo
The repetition of a sound caused by sound waves bouncing off of an object.
echolocation
Using echoes (bouncing sound waves) to determine the location of something. Bats and dolphins rely on echolocation to navigate.
ecosystem
A community of living things.
elastic
Able to be stretched and then returned to its original shape.
evaporation
The process by which liquid changes into a vapor.
frost
The layer of tiny ice crystals on a cold surface.
gait
How an animal moves.
gas
Something that has no shape or volume, like water vapor or carbon dioxide.
gravity
The force that holds objects close to the Earth's surface. On the Moon, there is no gravity, and objects just float around in space.
greenhouse
A glass-enclosed building used to grow plants.
group
A collection that shares similarities, as in a kind of classification.
habitat
The place where a plant or an animal usually lives and gets what it needs to live.
herbivore
An animal that eats only plants.
iceberg
A large, floating chunk of freshwater ice that broke off of a larger glacier.
kingdom
One of the three main divisions in biological classification.
landfill
A way of taking care of a large amount of waste by burying it in the ground.
light
Waves produced by the sun that enable us to see.
limestone
Rock formed mostly by remains of sea shells and consisting of calcium carbonate.
magnet
A mass of iron or steel or some mixture of both that can attract iron and that produces a magnetic field.
meteorologist
Someone who studies the weather.
palindrome
A word that reads the same forward and backward.
pole
One end of a magnet, either north or south.
producer
The member of the food chain that produces energy for the other members of the food chain.
protein
An essential part of the food we eat that helps our bodies grow healthy and strong.
rainbow
An arc that shows off the colors present in sunlight as it passes through water drops.
reflection
When light waves bounce back from a surface.
refraction
When light bends because it passes through a substance such as glass or water.
repel
To push away from oneself, such as two magnets with the same poles facing each other.
reproduce
To make more of something, such as plants or animals.
seed
A grain or fruit that enables a plant to reproduce itself.
sound
Vibrations transmitted through air or another medium that we can hear.
static electricity
Electricity caused by rubbing two objects together.
surface tension
The force that holds water molecules together and allows water to have a kind of skin.
transpiration
The process by which moisture is released from a plant in the form of water vapor.
vibrate
To move back and forth, or to and fro, rhythmically and rapidly.
volume
The measurement of the space taken up by an object.
water vapor
Water in the form of a gas, present in the atmosphere.
weight
The measurement of how heavy something is.