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6th grade · Science · Unit 7 of 17

Kinetic & Potential Energy

Energy of motion and stored energy.

What your child practices

Practices how kinetic energy depends on mass and speed, how potential energy changes with position, and how energy transfers change an object's motion.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) teks student expectation: 6.8(A) · gravitational, elastic and chemical potential energy compared with kinetic energy

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Kinetic energy is the energy of motion. Faster or heavier objects have more.
  2. Potential energy is stored energy due to position or condition.
  3. A high object has gravitational potential energy. A stretched band has elastic potential energy.
  4. Pushing an object transfers energy to it, so it speeds up.

Example: A stretched rubber band is about to be let go. Which kind of energy does it have? It is not moving yet, so the energy is stored. Stretching stores elastic potential energy. Answer: elastic potential energy

Kinetic & Potential Energy in Texas

In the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), this is unit 7 of 17 in 6th grade Science, after Newton's Laws and before Stored Energy.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Texas Education Agency (TEA)

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    Lifting a book higher increases its…

    • temperature
    • kinetic energy
    • mass
    • potential energy

  2. Question 2

    Which has more kinetic energy?

    • A parked truck
    • A ball at rest
    • A truck at 50 km/h
    • A bike at 50 km/h

  3. Question 3

    A stretched rubber band has…

    • nuclear energy
    • sound energy
    • elastic potential energy
    • kinetic energy only

  4. Question 4

    If mass doubles at the same speed, kinetic energy…

    • doubles
    • stays the same
    • halves
    • quadruples

  5. Question 5

    Kinetic energy is energy of…

    • light only
    • motion
    • position
    • heat only

  6. Question 6

    Two balls roll at the same speed; one has 3 times the mass. Its KE is…

    • one-third
    • 3 times as much
    • the same
    • 9 times as much

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