Licensure Examination For Teachers Review Hand Outs Science and Technology

LICENSURE EXAMINATION FOR TEACHERS REVIEW HAND OUTS
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
The Scientific Method
The scientific method is a step-by-step approach towards solving a problem. It involves certain principles of
reasoning to help organize thoughts and procedures for finding a possible explanation or answer to a question.
The scientific method is believed to have been introduced by the Greek philosopher Aristotle, but the one
that we know today is a result of the contribution of many great philosophers, scientists, and psychologists. This
method involves a set of techniques to investigate a phenomenon, acquire new information, and also verify, correct,
or integrate previous information based on the facts and figures or evidences available.
Steps of the Scientific Method:
LIFE SCIENCE (BIOLOGY)
What is an Ecosystem?
An ecosystem consists of the biological community that occurs in some locale, and the physical and chemical
factors that make up its non-living or abiotic environment. There are many examples of ecosystems -- a pond, a
forest, an estuary, a grassland. The boundaries are not fixed in any objective way, although sometimes they seem
obvious, as with the shoreline of a small pond. Usually the boundaries of an ecosystem are chosen for practical
reasons having to do with the goals of the particular study.
The study of ecosystems mainly consists of the study of certain processes that link the living, or biotic,
components to the non-living, or abiotic, components. Energy transformations and biogeochemical cycling are the
main processes that comprise the field of ecosystem ecology. As we learned earlier, ecology generally is defined as
the interactions of organisms with one another and with the environment in which they occur. We can study ecology
at the level of the individual, the population, the community, and the ecosystem.
LET Science Handout-page1

Studies of individuals are concerned mostly about physiology, reproduction, development or behavior, and
studies of populations usually focus on the habitat and resource needs of individual species, their group behaviors,
population growth, and what limits their abundance or causes extinction. Studies of communities examine how
populations of many species interact with one another, such as predators and their prey, or competitors that share
common needs or resources.
In ecosystem ecology we put all of this together and, insofar as we can, we try to understand how the system
operates as a whole. This means that, rather than worrying mainly about particular species, we try to focus on major
functional aspects of the system. These functional aspects include such things as the amount of energy that is
produced by photosynthesis, how energy or materials flow along the many steps in a food chain.
What Are Abiotic Components?
Abiotic components are non-living chemical and physical factors in the environment. Abiotic phenomena
underlie all of biology, but at the same time both are better forgotten in the direct analysis of life as such. More
generally, the sciences concentrated on lower level explanation are better forgotten when dealing with higher level
phenomena. This is not true, abiotic factors, while generally downplayed, can have enormous impact on evolution.
From the viewpoint of biology, abiotic influences may be classified as light or more generally radiation,
temperature, water, the chemical surrounding composed of the terrestrial atmospheric gases, as well as the
surroundings composed by the solid matter at the ground. The macroscopic climate often influences each of the
above. Not to mention pressure and even sound waves if working with marine, or deep underground, biome.
Those underlying factors affect different plants, animals and fungi to different extents. Some plants are
mostly water starved, so humidicity plays a larger role in their biology. Archaebacteria require very high
temperatures, or pressures, or unusual concentrations of chemical substances such as sulfur, because of their
specialization into extreme conditions. Certain fungi have evolved to survive mostly at the temperature, the
humidity, and stability.
What are Biotic Components?
Biotic components are the living things that shape an ecosystem. They are, in entirety, anything that affects a
living organism that is itself alive. Those things include animals which consume the organism in question, and the
living food that the organism consumes. As opposed to abiotic components ,i.e, non-living components of an
environment,(temperature, light, moisture, air currents, etc.), biotic components are the living components of an
environment, such as predators and prey.
For example, if one were to examine a tundra ecosystem for biotic and abiotic components, one would
observe things like the extreme temperatures of the day and night, the fast winds, the heavy amount of sunlight, and
scarcity of water as abiotic (or non-living components) in the environment. One would observe that for a quail living
in the desert, living elements like the quail's prey (insects, seeds, etc.) and predators (coyotes, sparrow hawk, gold
eagles, etc.) make up the biotic components of the quail's environment.
Ecological Relationships

An Ecological relationship is the relationship between organisms in an ecosystem. All organisms in an

ecosystem are connected. Each interaction depends on the one before it. Each population interacts with one another
in a complex web of relations. Ecological relationships help better describe how they are connected.
There are six ecological relationships in which two are oppositional and four are symbiotic. The oppositional
relationships are predation and competition. The symbiotic relationships are mutualism, commensalism,
amensalism, and parasitism. The ecological relationship an organism has depends on the way the organism adapted
to its environmental pressures on evolutionary bases.
1. Predation-This is where one organism hunts and eats the other organism. The organism hunting is called predator,
while the organism being hunted is called prey. Energy received from the sun is transferred from animals when the
prey is eaten by the predator. The predator now has its prey’s energy.
A predator is usually a carnivore that hunts, kills and eats other animals. For example a snake eating a
mouse, the snake is considered the predator because it is consuming the mouse. In another example, a striped
marlin is a predator. It lives in the Pacific Ocean and preys on sardines, also a Pacific animal. Similarly, various birds
eat earthworms.
However, a predator can become the prey of another larger predator. For instance, a snake may become a
meal for a hawk.
"In ecology, predation is a mechanism of population control. Thus, when the number of predators is scarce, the
number of preys should rise. When this happens, the predators would be able to reproduce more and possibly
change their hunting habits. As the number of predators rise, the number of preys decline. This results in food
scarcity for predators that can eventually lead to the death of many predators."
The prey does not necessarily have to be an animal, but can also be a plant. When prey is a plant, the
relationship would be called an herbivore plant relationship.
A perfect example of this would be,” Galapagos tortoises eat cactus plants that grow on the Galapagos
Islands.” Another example are the koalas. They have a special digestive system that allows them to break down
tough eucalyptus leaves and remain unharmed by its poison (National Geographic).Finally, a squirrel is the herbivore
(predator) and the nuts he eats are the plant (prey).
Food Webs
The species that make up an ecosystem are connected in complex "food webs" of eater and eaten. Food
webs show interconnectedness, especially between predators and their prey. When one species disappears, its
predators can no longer eat it and its prey is no longer eaten by it. Changes in these populations affect others.

Energy Pyramids
An energy pyramid is a way of showing how energy flows through an ecosystem specifically on a certain food
chain (predators and their prey).
Energy – The energy for all living things comes from the sun
Producers – Plants that capture the light energy and turn it into
chemical energy (stored in sugar)
Consumers – Carnivores are consumers that eat meat
Ex. Lion eat Zebra
Herbivores – Consumers that eat plants (producers)
Ex. Chipmunks and Armadillos
Scavengers are consumers that eat dead animals
Ex. Vultures
Decomposers are consumers that eat and/or break
down waste products
Ex. Fungus and Mold
Process for making an energy pyramid
1. Start with a food web
2. Find a food chain within the food web
3. Identify the trophic levels (Trophic Level-Steps in a
food chain/energy pyramid)
4. Add the source of energy (usually the sun, but may also
be chemosynthetic bacteria found near underwater
volcanoes.)
5. Show the amount of energy in every movement
6. Show the energy that is lost
2.Competition-Competition is when organisms compete for the same resources. This is a negative relationship
because both organisms are harming each other
Intraspecies competition
Organisms competing can be from within the same species for example, two male elk fighting for a female
mate. Elephants also fight each other so that the dominant elephant will get to breed with the female.
Another species that shows great competition between each other are the dolphins. Dolphins go along
together and play with each other, but when it is time to eat; all dolphins have to compete for a meal.
Interspecies competition
Competition can be also found in two different species. A lizard and a frog can compete for a similar food
they eat such as a small insect. This type of competition is only found when two different species share an
ecological niche that they must compete over.
Competitive exclusion principle
“Direct competition between different species almost always produces a winner and a loser- and the losing
species dies out,” or is forced to migrate to another ecosystem which can support them (Levine, 2010). This
is the competitive exclusion principle. This principle says that two species that need the same resources
cannot survive together in the same habitat. One organism will eventually die off, thus, called.
Symbiotic Relationships
3. Mutualism- is a relationship in which organisms benefit from each other. This is a positive, positive relationship.
An example of this would be the bee and the flower. The bee gets nectar and honey from the flower. The bee
contributes back to the flower by spreading the pollen so that the flowers can reproduce. This is a very common
contribute to both the flower and the bee, they both rely on each other to survive. Another example would be when
the ox pecker lands on an impalas back and eats the ticks that are a parasite to the impala. The ox pecker is benefited
because it gets a meal from the tick and the impala gets benefited because the tick is no longer on it. Similarly,
monkeys pick fleas from other monkeys which benefits both because its like a treat.
There is a mutualistic relationship between spider crabs and algae. The algae live on the crabs' backs,
allowing the spider crab to blend in with its environment, so that predators can't find them. The algae get a nice
place to live, while in turn, the spider crab gets camouflaged. Thus, both organisms are benefited. The Clownfish and
Anemone would also be a good fit for mutualism because the Anemone protects the clownfish while the clownfish
protects the Anemone. "The clownfish benefits by having a protected home territory."Finally, there is even a
mutualistic relationship within the human body. Bacteria live inside our intestines (getting a good place to live) and
help us break down our food and get vitamins.
4.Commensalism-is a relationship in which one organism benefits from another organism that is not affected. This is
a positive, neutral relationship. For example a small fish called the Pilot Fish follows underneath a shark and when
the shark eats something the pilot fish eats the scrap pieces of the shark original kill. Another example is of a birds
nest in a tree. The bird is benefitting because the tree is giving the bird shelter and the tree is not getting anything in
return. Similarly, the transparent shrimp benefits from a reef because it hides within it (camouflaging), but the coral
is not affected.
Additionally the relationship between an infectious disease and its carrier, an animal such as a mosquito,
could be classified as commensalism because the mosquito is unaffected by the presence of the disease, but the
mosquito transfers it to a host in which the disease can reproduce or spread more easily to others.
"Often, the host species provides a home and/or transportation for the other species." (www.Biology-
Online.org) The whale and barnacles are a perfect example of this. “Barnacles are crustaceans that have jointed legs
and shells of connected overlapping plates. Instead of crawling after food, they glue themselves to rocks, ships,
pillings, abalones, and maybe even whales and wait for food to wash by.” The barnacles attach themselves to the

whale. This way, the barnacle can get food faster. This does not affect the whale so he does not take the barnacle
off.
5. Amensalism- is a relationship in which a product of one organism has a negative effect on another organism.[4] It
is specifically a population interaction in which one organism is harmed, while the other is neither affected nor
benefited. Usually this occurs when one organism exudes a chemical compound as part of its normal metabolism
that is detrimental to another organism. The bread mold penicillium is a common example; penicillium secrete
penicillin, a chemical that kills bacteria. A second example is the black walnut tree (Juglans nigra), which secrete
juglone, an allelochemical that harms or kills some species of neighboring plants. This interaction may nevertheless
increase the fitness of the non-harmed organism by removing competition and allowing it greater access to scarce
resources. In this sense the impeded organism can be said to be negatively affected by the other's very existence,
making it a +/- interaction. A third example is when sheep or cattle make trails by trampling on grass, thereby
destroying a food source.
6. Parasitism- is a relationship in which one organism (the parasite) benefits while the other (the host) is harmed.
This is a positive, negative relationship. The parasite usually lives on or inside the other organism.
For example, mosquito is a parasite, feeding on a human while transferring the disease called Malaria. Other
examples would be ticks or fleas that live off of many large mammals. Similarly, head lice are an example of
parasitism because they feed on blood from the humans head. In Colorado, the pine bark beetle is a common
parasite. The pine beetles lays its eggs in the pine trees, and then when the babies are born, they eat the layers of
the tree which stops the tree from growing.
Cycles in Nature
Law of Conservation of Matter - Matter cannot be created nor destroyed in any chemical reaction. It can
only be transformed from one form to another.
Cycle - A cycle shows the reusing of certain elements and compounds (e.g. water, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen,
phosphorus) in different forms in ecosystems.
1.Water Cycle
The sun provides the heat energy required for the cycle to continue.
The oceans and rivers are the main reservoirs of water.
Evaporation - Water evaporates into the atmosphere.
Condensation - Water condenses into droplets in the clouds.
Precipitation - As the water droplets in clouds enlarge, water falls to earth in the form of rain, snow or hail.
Transpiration - Water is lost through the leaves of plants ('trees perspiring').
2. Carbon & Oxygen Cycles
Carbon occurs in all living organisms in the forms of carbon dioxide, carbohydrates (sugars and starches),
proteins and fats.
Oxygen occurs in all living organisms in the forms of oxygen gas, water, carbon dioxide, carbohydrates,
proteins and fats.
Photosynthesis - Photosynthesis is the process used by plants containing chlorophyll to utilize sunlight,
carbon dioxide and water to form sugar (as glucose) and oxygen.

Respiration - Respiration is the process that most living organisms (including animals, plants, fungi and micro-
organisms) use to obtain energy from glucose sugar and oxygen. The wastes formed are carbon dioxide and water.
3. Nitrogen Cycle
There are two interrelated parts of the Nitrogen Cycle.
1st Part of the Nitrogen Cycle
Nitrogen gas forms about 80% of the atmosphere. However, no animals and few plants can utilize nitrogen in
this gaseous form.
Nitrogen-Fixing Bacteria converts atmospheric nitrogen to amino acids, which are the components of
proteins. Examples of nitrogen-fixing bacteria are the cyanobacteria Nostoc, soil bacteria Azotobacter and
Clostridium, and the legume root bacteria Rhizobium.
Atmospheric nitrogen can also be fixed or converted to a more solid form by lightning.
In reverse, Denitrifying Bacteria in the soil convert ammonia, a nitrogenous waste in urine, back to
atmospheric nitrogen.
2nd Part of the Nitrogen Cycle

Nitrogen in animals and plants is in the form of amino acids and proteins. As one organism eats another
along the food chain, the nitrogen passes from one organism to another.
Animals also excrete nitrogenous wastes in urine as urea, uric acid or ammonia. This passes to the soil.
When animals and plants die, Putrefactive Bacteria in the soil converts the body amino acids and proteins to
ammonia in the soil. These decay bacteria also convert urea and uric acid to ammonia in the soil.
Nitrite Bacteria in the soil convert ammonia to nitrites in the soil.
Nitrate Bacteria in the soil convert those nitrites to nitrates in the soil. These are used by the plants as
fertilizers.
4. Phosphorus Cycle
Phosphorus is an essential component of many chemicals within living organisms. Examples include the
energy-rich compound ATP (Adenosine Triphosphate) and the phosphates used by plants as fertilizers.
Phosphorus cycles in a complex way which is different from the elements of carbon, oxygen and nitrogen.
Phosphorus in the form of phosphates is deposited as feces and guano on land masses such as the island of Nauru.
Rain then erodes the phosphorus-rich guano into the ocean. The guano then is eroded further in the ocean. There is
little deposition back onto the land.
The Rock Cycle - Weathering

Rocks gradually wear away. This is called weathering. There are three types of weathering:
physical weathering
chemical weathering
biological weathering
Physical Weathering
Physical weathering is caused by physical changes such as changes in temperature, freezing and thawing, and
the effects of wind, rain and waves.
Temperature changes
When a rock gets hot it expands a little, and when a rock gets cold it contracts a little. If a rock is heated and
cooled many times, cracks form and pieces of rock fall away. This type of physical weathering happens a lot in
deserts, because it is very hot during the day but very cold at night.
Wind, rain and waves
Wind, rain and waves can all cause weathering. The wind can blow tiny grains of sand against a rock. These
wear the rock away and weather it. Rain and waves can also wear away rock over long periods of time.
Freeze-thaw
Water expands slightly when it freezes into ice. This is why water pipes sometimes burst in the winter. You
might have seen a demonstration of this sort of thing at school - a jar filled to the brim with water eventually
shatters after it is put into a freezer.
The formation of ice can also break rocks. If water gets into a crack in a rock and then freezes, it expands and
pushes the crack further apart. When the ice melts later, water can get further into the crack. When the rock freezes
again, it expands and makes the crack even bigger.
This process of freezing and thawing can continue until the crack becomes so big that a piece of rock falls off.
Matter and Its Properties

Matter is “anything that has mass and occupies space”, matter is what chemical substances are composed
of. But what do we mean by chemical substances? How do we organize our view of matter and its properties? These
will be the subjects of this lesson.
Physical and Chemical Changes
There are several differences between a physical and chemical change in matter or substances. A physical
change in a substance doesn't change what the substance is. In a chemical change where there is a chemical
reaction, a new substance is formed and energy is either given off or absorbed.

For example, if a piece of paper is cut up into small pieces it still is paper. This would be a physical change in
the shape and size of the paper. If the same piece of paper is burned, it is broken up into different substances that
are not paper.
Physical changes can be reversed; chemical changes cannot be reversed with the substance changed back
without extraordinary means, if at all. For example, a cup of water can be frozen when cooled and then can be
returned to a liquid form when heated.
If one decided to mix sugar into water to make sugar water, this would be a physical change as the water
could be left out to evaporate and the sugar crystals would remain. However, if one made a recipe for a cake with
flour, water, sugar and other ingredients and baked them together, it would take extraordinary means to separate
the various ingredients out to their original form.
When heat is given off in a chemical change or reaction, it is called an exothermic reaction. When heat is
absorbed in a chemical change or reaction, it is called an endothermic reaction. The speed at which chemical
reactions take place depend on the temperature pressure and how concentrated the substances involved in the
chemical reaction are. Sometimes substances called catalysts are used to speed up or help along a chemical reaction.
Light is helpful in the processing of film.
Observable Properties of Matter
Extensive and intensive properties
If you think about the various observable properties of matter, it will become apparent that these fall into
two classes. Some properties, such as mass and volume, depend on the quantity of matter in the sample we are
studying. Clearly, these properties, as important as they may be, cannot by themselves be used to characterize a kind
of matter; to say that “water has a mass of 2 kg” is nonsense, although it may be quite true in a particular instance.
Properties of this kind are called extensive properties of matter.
This definition of the density illustrates an important general rule: the ratio of two extensive properties is
always an intensive property.
Suppose we make further measurements, and find that the same quantity of water whose mass is 2.0 kg also
occupies a volume of 2.0 litres. We have measured two extensive properties (mass and volume) of the same sample
of matter. This allows us to define a new quantity, the quotient m/V which defines another property of water which
we call the density. Unlike the mass and the volume, which by themselves refer only to individual samples of water,
the density (mass per unit volume) is a property of all samples of pure water at the same temperature. Density is an
example of an intensive property of matter.
Intensive properties are extremely important, because every possible kind of matter possesses a unique set
of intensive properties that distinguishes it from every other kind of matter. Some intensive properties can be
determined by simple observations: color (absorption spectrum), melting point, density, solubility, acidic or alkaline
nature, and density are common examples. Even more fundamental, but less directly observable, is chemical
composition.
The more intensive properties we know, the more precisely we can characterize a sample of matter.

Intensive properties are extremely important, because every possible kind of matter possesses a unique set
of intensive properties that distinguishes it from every other kind of matter. In other words, intensive properties
serve to characterize matter. Many of the intensive properties depend on such variables as the temperature and
pressure, but the ways in which these properties change with such variables can themselves be regarded as intensive
properties.
Classify each of the following as an extensive or intensive property.
1.The volume of beer in a mug ext; depends on size of the mug.
2. The percentage of alcohol in the beer int; same for any same-sized sample.
3. The number of calories of energy you derive from eating a banana ext; depends on size and sugar
content of the banana.
4The number of calories of energy made available to your body when you consume 10.0 of sugar
int; same for any 10-g portion of sugar.
5.The mass of iron present in your blood ext; depends on volume of blood in the body.
6.The mass of iron present in 5 mL of your blood int; the same for any 5-mL sample.
7.The electrical resistance of a piece of 22-gauge copper wire. ext; depends on length of the wire.
8. The electrical resistance of a 1-km length of 22-gauge copper wire int; same for any 1-km length of the
same wire.
9.The pressure of air in a bicycle tire pressure itself is intensive, but is also dependent on the quantity of
air in the tire.
But we often encounter matter whose different parts exhibit different sets of intensive properties. This
brings up another distinction that we address immediately below.
Classification of Matter
One useful way of organizing our understanding of matter is to think of a hierarchy that extends down from
the most general and complex to the simplest and most fundamental. The orange-colored boxes represent the
central realm of chemistry, which deals ultimately with specific chemical substances, but as a practical matter,
chemical science extends both above and below this region.
Alternatively, it is sometimes more useful to cast our classification into two dimensions:
Homogeneous and heterogeneous: it's a matter of phases
Homogeneous matter (from the Greek homo = same) can be thought of as being uniform and continuous,
whereas heterogeneous matter (hetero = different) implies non-uniformity and discontinuity. To take this further,
we first need to define "uniformity" in a more precise way, and this takes us to the concept of phases.

A phase is a region of matter that possesses uniform intensive properties throughout its volume. A volume of
water, a chunk of ice, a grain of sand, a piece of copper— each of these constitutes a single phase, and by the above
definition, is said to be homogeneous.
A sample of matter can contain more than a single phase; a cool drink with ice floating in it consists of at
least two phases, the liquid and the ice. If it is a carbonated beverage, you can probably see gas bubbles in it that
make up a third phase.
Phase Boundaries
Each phase in a multiphase system is separated from its neighbors by a phase boundary, a thin region in
which the intensive properties change discontinuously. Have you ever wondered why you can easily see the ice
floating in a glass of water although both the water and the ice are transparent? The answer is that when light
crosses a phase boundary, its direction of travel is slightly bent, and a portion of the light gets reflected back; it is
these reflected and distorted light rays emerging from that reveal the chunks of ice floating in the liquid.
If, instead of visible chunks of material, the second phase is broken into tiny particles, the light rays usually
bounce off the surfaces of many of these particles in random directions before they emerge from the medium and
are detected by the eye. This phenomenon, known as scattering, gives multiphase systems of this kind a cloudy
appearance, rendering them translucent instead of transparent. Two very common examples are ordinary fog, in
which water droplets are suspended in the air, and milk, which consists of butterfat globules suspended in an
aqueous solution.
Homogeneous matter consists of a single phase throughout its volume; heterogeneous matter contains two
or more phases.
Dichotomies ("either-or" classifications) often tend to break down when closely examined, and the
distinction between homogeneous and heterogeneous matter is a good example; this really a matter of degree, since
at the microscopic level all matter is made up of atoms or molecules separated by empty space! For most practical
purposes, we consider matter as homogeneous when any discontinuities it contains are too small to affect its visual
appearance.
How large must a molecule or an agglomeration of molecules be before it begins to exhibit properties of a
being a separate phase? Such particles span the gap between the micro and macro worlds, and have been known as
colloids since they began to be studied around 1900. But with the development of nanotechnology in the 1990s, this
distinction has become even more fuzzy.
Pure Substances and Mixtures
The air around us, most of the liquids and solids we encounter, and all too much of the water we drink
consists not of pure substances, but of mixtures. You probably have a general idea of what a mixture is, and how it
differs from a pure substance; what is the scientific criterion for making this distinction?
To a chemist, a pure substance usually refers to a sample of matter that has a distinct set of properties that
are common to all other samples of that substance. A good example would be ordinary salt, sodium chloride. No

matter what its source (from a mine, evaporated from seawater, or made in the laboratory), all samples of this
substance, once they have been purified, possess the same unique set of properties.
A pure substance is one whose intensive properties are the same in any purified sample of that same
substance.
A mixture, in contrast, is composed of two or more substances, and it can exhibit a wide range of properties
depending on the relative amounts of the components present in the mixture. For example, you can dissolve up to
357 g of salt in one litre of water at room temperature, making possible an infinite variety of "salt water" solutions.
For each of these concentrations, properties such as the density, boiling and freezing points, and the vapor pressure
of the resulting solution will be different.
This description of Ivory Soap is a classic example of junk science from the 19th century. Not only is the term
"pure" meaningless when applied to an undefined mixture such as hand soap, but the implication that its ability to
float is evidence of this purity is deceptive. The low density is achieved by beating air bubbles into it, actually
reducing the "purity" of the product and in a sense cheating the consumer.
We all prefer to drink "pure" water, but we don't usually concern ourselves with the dissolved atmospheric
gases and ions that are present in most drinking waters. These same substances could seriously interfere with certain
uses to which we put water in the laboratory, were we customarily use distilled or de-ionized water. But even this
still contains some dissolved gases and occasionally some silica, but their small amounts and relative inertness make
these impurities insignificant for most purposes. When water of the highest obtainable purity is required for certain
types of exacting measurements, it is commonly filtered, de-ionized, and triple-vacuum distilled. But even this
"chemically pure" water is a mixture of isotopic species: there are two stable isotopes of both hydrogen (H1 and H2,
often denoted by D) and oxygen (O16 and O18) which give rise to combinations such as H2O18, HDO16, etc., all of
which are readily identifiable in the infrared spectra of water vapor. (Interestingly, the ratio of O18/O16 in water
varies enough from place to place that it is now possible to determine the source of a particular water sample with
some precision.) And to top this off, the two hydrogen atoms in water contain protons whose magnetic moments
can be parallel or antiparallel, giving rise to ortho- and para-water, respectively.
The bottom line: To a chemist, the term "pure" has meaning only in the context of a particular application or
process.
Since chemistry is an experimental science, we need a set of experimental criteria for placing a given sample
of matter in one of these categories. There is no single experiment that will always succeed in unambiguously
deciding this kind of question. However, there is one principle that will always work in theory, if not in practice. This
is based on the fact that the various components of a mixture can, in principle, always be separated into pure
substances.
Consider a heterogeneous mixture of salt water and sand. The sand can be separated from the salt water by
the mechanical process of filtration. Similarly, the butterfat contained in milk may be separated from the water by a
mechanical process known as centrifugation, which depends on differences in density between the two components.
These examples illustrate the general principle that heterogeneous matter may be separated into homogeneous
matter by mechanical means. Turning this around, we have an operational definition of heterogeneous matter: if, by

some mechanical operation we can separate a sample of matter into two or more other kinds of matter, then our
original sample was heterogeneous.
To find a similar operational definition for homogeneous mixtures, consider how we might separate the two
components of a solution of salt water. The most obvious way would be to evaporate off the water, leaving the salt
as a solid residue. Thus a homogeneous mixture can be separated into pure substances by undergoing appropriate
changes of state— that is, by evaporation, freezing, etc. If a sample of matter remains unchanged by carrying out
operations of this kind, then it could be a pure substance.
Some common methods of separating homogeneous mixtures into their components are outlined below.
Distillation. A liquid is partly boiled away; the first portions of the condensed vapor will be enriched in the
lower-boiling component.
Fractional crystallization. A hot saturated solution of a solid in a liquid is allowed to cool slowly; the first solid
that crystallizes out tends to be of higher purity.
Liquid-liquid extraction. Two mutually-insoluble liquids, one containing two or more solutes (dissolved
substances), are shaken together. Each solute will concentrate in the liquid in which it is more soluble.
Chromatography. As a liquid or gaseous mixture flows along a column containing an adsorbant material, the
more strongly-adsorbed components tend to move more slowly and emerge later than the less-strongly adsorbed
components.
Physical and Chemical Properties
Since chemistry is partly the study of the transformations that matter can undergo, we can also assign to any
substance a set of chemical properties that express the various changes of composition the substance is known to
undergo. Chemical properties also include the conditions of temperature, etc., required to bring about the change,
and the amount of energy released or absorbed as the change takes place.
Problem Example
Classify each of the statements as a physical or chemical property, and explain the basis for your answer.
Chlorine is a greenish-yellow gas at room temperature.
This is another way of stating that the boiling point (a physical property) is below 20°C.
Liquid oxygen is attracted by a magnet.
Even under the influence of the magnet, the oxygen is still the same substance, O2, so the effect is purely a
physical property.
Gold is highly resistant to corrosion.
Corrosion involves the reaction of a metal with oxygen and water, so corrosion (and by extension, resistance
to corrosion) is definitely a chemical property.

Hydrogen cyanide is an extremely poisonous gas.
Most poisonous substances act by combining chemically with substances that interfere with some aspect of
cellular biochemistry, so we can consider this to be a chemical property of HCN.
Sugar is a high-energy food.
The chemical energy contained in a food or fuel can be released only through a chemical reaction leading to
lower-energy products. The “high-energy” part might be considered a physical property, since this depends
on the quantity of energy obtainable from a given mass of the substance.
Motion
In physics, motion is a change in position of an object with respect to time and its reference point. Motion is
typically described in terms of displacement, direction, velocity, acceleration, and time.[1] Motion is observed by
attaching a frame of reference to a body and measuring its change in position relative to that frame.
A body which does not move is said to be at rest, motionless, immobile, stationary, or to have constant
(time-invariant) position. An object's motion cannot change unless it is acted upon by a force, as described by
Newton's first law. An object's momentum is directly related to the object's mass and velocity, and the total
momentum of all objects in a closed system (one not affected by external forces) does not change with time, as
described by the law of conservation of momentum.
As there is no absolute frame of reference, absolute motion cannot be determined. Thus, everything in the
universe can be considered to be moving.
More generally, the term motion signifies a continuous change in the configuration of a physical system. For
example, one can talk about motion of a wave or a quantum particle (or any other field) where the configuration
consists of probabilities of occupying specific positions.
Classical mechanics is fundamentally based on Newton's Laws of Motion. These laws describe the
relationship between the forces acting on a body and the motion of that body. They were first compiled by Sir Isaac
Newton in his work Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, first published on July 5, 1687. His three laws are:
1. In the absence of a net external force, a body either is at rest or moves with constant velocity.
2. The net external force on a body is equal to the mass of that body times its acceleration; F = ma.
Alternatively, the acceleration is directly proportional to the force causing it, and inversely proportional to
the mass.
3. Whenever one body exerts a force F onto a second body, the second body exerts the force −F on the first
body. F and −F are equal in magnitude and opposite in sense.
Newton's three laws of motion, along with his law of universal gravitation, explain Kepler's laws of
planetary motion, which were the first to accurately provide a mathematical model for understanding orbiting
bodies in outer space. This explanation unified the motion of celestial bodies and motion of objects on earth.

Classical mechanics was later further enhanced by Albert Einstein's special relativity and general relativity.
Special relativity explains the motion of objects with a high velocity, approaching the speed of light; general relativity
is employed to handle gravitational motion at a deeper level.
Electric Circuits
Electricity has been with us since our beginnings, even if those humble cavemen weren't able to realize it.
This electricity comes in many shapes and sizes, from the electricity that flows from the clouds, to the neurons that
control the skeletal muscles in the arms. At one point, when people became more aware of this electricity around
them, it fascinated and frightened them, some even came to believe it was some form of magic. Even though
electricity has been around us for a long time, we have not come to realize what it really was until a few hundred
years ago. Benjamin Franklin is credited with the discovery of electricity; however, this is not actually the case. An
Italian scientist, Alessandro Volta, was the first person to make a successful battery, a device which provides direct
current to a closed circuit. Later, Michael Faraday realized that you can make an electrical current by passing a
magnet through a copper wire. Thomas Edison accelerated the field of electricity with his innovation design for a
light bulb, a sealed glass bulb with a filament that creates light when current is passed through it, however it was
expensive. They where run by battery, so Edison got to work to find a more practical way to supply energy, seeing as
how batteries did not last very long and had to be replaced. He built one of the first working power plants and was
able to supply a small town with the electricity needs. However, that is all that it could supply, the Direct Current that
it used was not able to supply to those further from the factory.
A Simple Circuit
In essence, a light bulb and a battery is one of the easiest and simplest electrical circuits to make. All it
requires is a battery, a bulb, and some wire or other conducting metal that can be shaped easily. The most important
thing when creating the circuit is to have a complete circuit, as in everything is connected. Now, Where do we
connect the wires? In the light bulb there are two wires that are connected by a filament, those wires travel down
and are connected to the base of the bulb. One of the wires is attached to the very bottom, while the other is
attached to the larger mass of metal at the base. Connect the two terminals of the battery to the individual
connectors on the light bulb and you have light, disconnect one of the terminals and the light disappears. How this
works is simple, in the battery the electrons will want to move through the circuit to get to the other end of the
battery. While along the conducting wires the electricity will only move in a single direction, however, inside the
battery current if moving in both directions at the same time. Along the way the current will pass through the
filament of the bulb, where they will lose their charge and spit light photons out. This will create light and heat. Then
the current flows from the filament to the other end of the battery, where they will be recharged in the battery and
flow through the circuit until the connecting wires are disconnected, breaking the circuit. For those who need more
of an explanation, the flow of an electric current through a circuit can be compared to water flowing through a
pump. The battery pushes current through the wires, like a pump pushes water through pipes. Water, like electricity
will flow all the way back to the pump as long as all the pipes are connected and running back into the place that the
pump is drawing water from. Then the pump will force the water back through the pipes until it runs out of power or
until at least one of the pipes are closed off, like how disconnecting the wires from the battery or the bulb will close
off the circuit and current stops flowing through.
An electrical circuit is a path in which electrons from a voltage or current source flow. Electric current flows
in a closed path called an electric circuit. The point where those electrons enter an electrical circuit is called the
"source" of electrons. The point where the electrons leave an electrical circuit is called the "return" or "earth
ground". The exit point is called the "return" because electrons always end up at the source when they complete the
path of an electrical circuit. The part of an electrical circuit that is between the electrons' starting point and the point
where they return to the source is called an electrical circuit's "load".
Electrical circuits usually use alternating current sources. The load of an electrical circuit may be as simple as
those from electrical appliances like refrigerators, televisions, or microwave ovens. But the
A simple electrical circuit. This

circuit has a power source, a
complete path for electrons to
flow, and a resistor as the load.
Ohm's Law is the mathematical relationship among electric current, resistance, and voltage. The principle is
named after the German scientist Georg Simon Ohm.
loads for electrical circuits can also be quite complicated, such as the load upon the output of a hydroelectric
power generating station.
Circuits consisting of just one battery and one load resistance are very simple to analyze, but they are not
often found in practical applications. Usually, we find circuits where more than two components are connected
together.
Series and Parallel Circuit
There are two basic ways in which to connect more than two circuit components: series and parallel.

Here, we have three resistors (labeled R1, R2, and R3),

connected in a long chain from one terminal of the battery
to the other. (It should be noted that the subscript labeling --
those little numbers to the lower-right of the letter "R" -- are
unrelated to the resistor values in ohms. They serve only to
identify one resistor from another.) The defining
characteristic of a series circuit is that there is only one path
for electrons to flow. In this circuit the electrons flow in a
counter-clockwise direction, from point 4 to point 3 to point
2 to point 1 and back around to 4.
Again, we have three resistors, but this time they form more
than one continuous path for electrons to flow. There's one
path from 8 to 7 to 2 to 1 and back to 8 again. There's
another from 8 to 7 to 6 to 3 to 2 to 1 and back to 8 again.
And then there's a third path from 8 to 7 to 6 to 5 to 4 to 3
to 2 to 1 and back to 8 again. Each individual path (through
R1, R2, and R3) is called a branch.
And, of course, the complexity doesn't stop at simple series

and parallel either! We can have circuits that are a
combination of series and parallel, too:
Work, Energy and Power
Work can be defined as transfer of energy. In physics we say that work is done on an object when you
transfer energy to that object. If one object transfers (gives) energy to a second object, then the first object does
work on the second object.
Work is the application of a force over a distance. Lifting a weight from the ground and putting it on a shelf is a good
example of work. The force is equal to the weight of the object, and the distance is equal to the height of the shelf
(W= Fxd).
Work-Energy Principle --The change in the kinetic energy of an object is equal to the net work done on the object.
Energy can be defined as the capacity for doing work. The simplest case of mechanical work is when an object is
standing still and we force it to move. The energy of a moving object is called kinetic energy. For an object of mass m,
moving with velocity of magnitude v, this energy can be calculated from the formula E= 1/2 mv^2.

Types of Energy
There are two types of energy in many forms:
Kinetic Energy = Energy of Motion
Potential Energy = Stored Energy
Forms of Energy
Solar Radiation -- Infrared Heat, Radio Waves, Gamma Rays, Microwaves, Ultraviolet Light
Atomic/Nuclear Energy -energy released in nuclear reactions. When a neutron splits an atom's nucleus into smaller
pieces it is called fission. When two nuclei are joined together under millions of degrees of heat it is called fusion
Electrical Energy --The generation or use of electric power over a period of time expressed in kilowatt-hours (kWh),
megawatt-hours (NM) or gigawatt-hours (GWh).
Chemical Energy --Chemical energy is a form of potential energy related to the breaking and forming of chemical
bonds. It is stored in food, fuels and batteries, and is released as other forms of energy during chemical reactions.
Mechanical Energy -- Energy of the moving parts of a machine. Also refers to movements in humans
Heat Energy -- a form of energy that is transferred by a difference in temperature
What is Power?
Power is the work done in a unit of time. In other words, power is a measure of how quickly work can be done. The
unit of power is the Watt = 1 Joule/ 1 second.
One common unit of energy is the kilowatt-hour (kWh). If we are using one kW of power, a kWh of energy will last
one hour.
Calculating Work, Energy and Power
WORK = W=Fd
Because energy is the capacity to do work , we measure energy and work in the same units (N*m or joules).
POWER (P) is the rate of energy generation (or absorption) over time:P = E/t
Power's SI unit of measurement is the Watt, representing the generation or absorption of energy at the rate of 1
Joule/sec. Power's unit of measurement in the English system is the horsepower, which is equivalent to 735.7 Watts.
Gravitational Potential Energy

Let's say you're dropping a ball from a certain height, and you'd like to know how fast it's traveling the
instant it hits the ground. You could apply the projectile motion equations, or you could think of the situation in
terms of energy (actually, one of the projectile motion equations is really an energy equation in disguise).
If you drop an object, it falls down, picking up speed along the way. This means there must be a net force on
the object, doing work. This force is the force of gravity, with a magnitude equal to mg, the weight of the object. The
work done by the force of gravity is the force multiplied by the distance, so if the object drops a distance h, gravity
does work on the object equal to the force multiplied by the height lost, which is:
work done by gravity = W = mgh (h = height lost by the object)
An alternate way of looking at this is to call this the gravitational potential energy. An object with potential
energy has the potential to do work. In the case of gravitational potential energy, the object has the potential to do
work because of where it is, at a certain height above the ground, or at least above something.
Conservation of Energy
We'll take all of the different kinds of energy we know about, and even all the other ones we don't, and
relate them through one of the fundamental laws of the universe.
The law of conservation of energy states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can merely be
changed from one form of energy to another. Energy often ends up as heat, which is thermal energy (kinetic energy,
really) of atoms and molecules. Kinetic friction, for example, generally turns energy into heat, and although we
associate kinetic friction with energy loss, it really is just a way of transforming kinetic energy into thermal energy.
The law of conservation of energy applies always, everywhere, in any situation. There is another
conservation idea associated with energy which does not apply as generally, and is therefore called a principle rather
than a law. This is the principle of the conservation of mechanical energy.
The Conservation of Mechanical Energy
Mechanical energy is the sum of the potential and kinetic energies in a system. The principle of the
conservation of mechanical energy states that the total mechanical energy in a system (i.e., the sum of the potential
plus kinetic energies) remains constant as long as the only forces acting are conservative forces. We could use a
circular definition and say that a conservative force as a force which doesn't change the total mechanical energy,
which is true, but might shed much light on what it means.
A good way to think of conservative forces is to consider what happens on a round trip. If the kinetic energy
is the same after a round trip, the force is a conservative force, or at least is acting as a conservative force. Consider
gravity; you throw a ball straight up, and it leaves your hand with a certain amount of kinetic energy. At the top of its
path, it has no kinetic energy, but it has a potential energy equal to the kinetic energy it had when it left your hand.
When you catch it again it will have the same kinetic energy as it had when it left your hand. All along the path, the
sum of the kinetic and potential energy is a constant, and the kinetic energy at the end, when the ball is back at its
starting point, is the same as the kinetic energy at the start, so gravity is a conservative force.
Kinetic friction, on the other hand, is a non-conservative force, because it acts to reduce the mechanical
energy in a system. Note that non-conservative forces do not always reduce the mechanical energy; a non-
conservative force changes the mechanical energy, so a force that increases the total mechanical energy, like the
force provided by a motor or engine, is also a non-conservative force.
Simple Machines
A simple machine is any device that only requires the application of a single force to work. Simple machines
all convert a smaller amount of force exerted over a larger distance to a greater amount of force exerted over a
shorter distance, or vice versa.
The ratio of the output force to the input force is the called mechanical advantage. The mechanical
advantage of a lever is equal to the ratio of its two arms. For example, the mechanical advantage of an inclined plane
(with the force acting parallel to the plane) is the cosecant of the angle of inclination.
Note: Real machines are also affected by factors such as friction and elasticity, so the actual mechanical advantage of
a simple machine will usually differ from its theoretical value.
Simple machines are often used in combination as components of more complex machines; for example the
Archimedes screw, which is a pump, is an example of a complex machine where the screw is a helical inclined plane.
6 Simple Machines:
1. LEVER- A lever is a simple machine that consists of a rigid object (often a bar of some kind and a fulcrum or pivot.
2. INCLINED PLANE- An inclined plane is a plane surface set at an angle to another surface.
3. WEDGE- A wedge is a double-inclined plane (both side are inclined) that moves to exert a force along the lengths
of the sides.
4. WHEEL- A wheel is a circular device that is attached to a rigid bar in its center.
5. PULLEY- A pully is a wheel with a groove along its edge, where a rope or cable can be placed.
6. SCREW- A screw is a shaft that has a inclined groove along its surface.
ASTRONOMY AND BEYOND
How far is the Earth to the sun?
The distance ranges between about 91 million miles and 94.5 million miles. Interestingly, the seasons do not depend
on the distance of earth to sun, instead on the tilt of the earth.
How big is the Earth?
The Earth is nearly 13,000 kilometres (km) wide. It's the largest terrestrial planet in the Solar System.
The Earth weighs 5,973,700,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilograms (kg). That's nearly 6 trillion trillion kg. That's a lot.
But it's little compared with Jupiter ({insert weight}) and tiny compared with the Sun ({insert weight}) or other stars.
Earth is the planet we live on. It is the only planet in the Solar System with liquid water on its surface. It is also the
only planet we know to have life on it. The Earth is the only planet we know to have living things on it.

The Earth's surface is made of rock. Much of it is under water, but not all. Islands of rock rise up out of the
water. The biggest islands we call continents, of which there are seven: North America, South America, Europe, Asia,
Africa, Australia, and Antarctica. The biggest water we call oceans, of which there are four: Pacific, Atlantic, Indian,
and Arctic. Some authorities classify the Southern as a fifth ocean.
The Earth's surface is divided into huge plates. They are like huge jigsaw pieces made of rock. These plates
move very slowly, carrying the continents with them. They rub beside each other, or push against each other, or
move away from each other. In the gaps between them, hot molten rock can rise up and make volcanoes. Where the
plates rub or push against each other, earthquakes may happen. When two plates push each other's rock upwards,
mountains are formed.
Earth has many kinds of environments. It is cold and icy in places like Antarctica. It is hot and dry in deserts
like the Sahara in Africa and Death Valley in the United States. It is cold and dry in deserts like Siberia in Russia.
Where it is warm and wet, rainforests grow.
Why is there life on Earth?
Wherever we have looked on Earth, we have found living things. They may be very small, like bacteria, but they are
there. We have found bacteria where it is very cold, very hot, very deep, very high or very dark.
What all living things on Earth seem to need is liquid water. Wherever you can find some water, there are almost
always living things there too, even if you can't see them. If we find liquid water somewhere else in the Solar System,
scientists think we might find some living things there too. If we don't, there is always the rest of the universe to try!
There is another possibility. All the living things we know need water. But maybe somewhere else there are
living things that don't need water. Perhaps we will need to learn how to recognize them.
What about the Earth's moon?
Earth has one moon we call... the Moon! Sometimes it is called Luna so we don't get confused with other
planets and their moons. The Moon has also been called Selene (said "suh-LEE-nee"). Recently we have also found
some other rocks going around the Earth. The largest one, called Cruithne (said "cru-EE-nyuh"), is three miles wide. It
orbits (goes around) the Earth like a comet orbits the Sun.
How long is a day on this planet?
A day on Earth is 24 hours long. That's daytime and nighttime. That's how long it takes the Earth to spin around once.
How long is a year on this planet?
A year on Earth is 365 days long. That's how long it takes the Earth to orbit the Sun once.
What is it made of:

When a planet is made of rock, we call its surface the

crust. Below the Earth's crust is hot molten rock. It is in a
layer called the mantle. The hot molten rock is what comes
out of volcanoes. It's then called lava.
Under the mantle is the core of the Earth. We think it is

made from solid iron and nickel, surrounded by hot molten
iron. The temperature there is very very hot!
The Earth's crust is very thin compared to the mantle and

the core. But it is very thick to us. Nobody has drilled all
the way through it yet.
How much does the Earth's gravity pull on me?
It's easy to find your weight on Earth by using a scale. You have weight because the Earth's gravity pulls you
towards its center. Normally, the ground or the floor get in the way, making you feel 'stuck' to them.
NOTE: Gravity varies slightly depending on the location where you want to get the weight; spring balances and some
electronic scales can, in theory, read slightly different weights at different places because of that, but usually in
practice that difference it too small to be noticed. But, because the balance type of scales works differently to the
spring or electronic types, they will always read the true, correct mass. That would even give the same mass on the
Moon, where gravity is much less than on Earth.
Did you know? Sir Isaac Newton was the first person to realize that the force pulling you down to the ground was
the same force that keeps the planets going around the Sun? The story goes that he thought of this when he saw an
apple fall from a tree.
Gravity-is a very important force. As well as keeping you firmly stuck to the Earth, it keeps the Moon going round the
Earth, The Earth going around the Sun and the Sun going around the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Gravity also
makes stars and planets a nice round ball shape. In fact without gravity there wouldn't even be a Sun, Moon or Earth
because the material that they are made of would just float away into space.
Who is it named after?
The word earth is used for both planet Earth and soil. Other names had been used for Earth such as Gaia and
Tellus. Gaia is the Greek goddess (meaning Earth). Tellus is the Roman name of the same goddess.
Solar SYSTEM
Planets are big balls of rock or gas that move around stars. We live on one we call the Earth, which moves
around a star we call the Sun. There are at least seven other planets moving around the Sun and a lot of other
smaller things as well. All these things together are called a system. The Latin word for the Sun is Sol, so we call this
system the Solar System.

A long time ago, people didn't realize that all these things in the Solar System move around the Sun. They
thought everything moved around the Earth, including the Sun. This seems sensible, because the Earth doesn't feel
as if it's moving, does it?
About 500 years ago, however, a man we call Copernicus suggested that all the planets moved around the
Sun. Then, about 100 years later, a man called Galileo began looking at the sky with a new invention: the telescope.
He showed that it was very likely that all the planets moved around the Sun. Soon, more and more people started
using telescopes to study the sky. They began to learn how the planets and the other things in the Solar System
moved.
Now, we send rockets into space to learn more. Astronauts travel around the Earth. Some of them have
landed on the Moon. Robots can fly to other planets to take pictures. We can see things that people like Copernicus
and Galileo could only dream about.
We can use very strong telescopes to see what has happened to other stars. We compare pictures of distant
stars with pictures of the Sun. We can use thousands of pictures of the planets to learn more about Earth. We use
what we learn about all the things in the Solar System to figure out how it was formed. We can also guess what
might happen to it in the future.
There are other smaller object that orbit the Sun, including asteroids, comets, meteoroids and dwarf planets.
 Asteroids (also called minor planets) are rocky or metallic objects, most of which orbit the Sun in the asteroid
belt between Mars and Jupiter.
 Comets are small, icy bodies that orbit the sun. They have very long tails.
 Meteoroids are small bodies that travel through space. They are stony and/or metallic and are smaller than
asteroids. Most are very tiny.
What is the Solar System?
At the center of the Solar System is the Sun. It is a star, like the billions of other stars in the sky. The other
stars are very far away, so they look tiny. The Sun is important to us because it gives us heat and energy that allows
life. None of the life on Earth could exist without the Sun. The rest of the things in the Solar System orbit (travel
around) the Sun. The planets are the largest of these. Each planet is a little like the Earth. But the planets are also
very different from each other.

Many of the planets have moons. A moon is like a small planet. Mercury has no moons. Earth has one.
Jupiter has 63!
The planets closest to the Sun are called the inner planets. These are Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. Then
comes a big ring of asteroids, chunks of rock much smaller than planets. This ring is called the asteroid belt. Then
come the outer planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.
Beyond the orbit of Neptune is another big ring of things like the asteroids, called the Kuiper belt. Kuiper
(said "KYE-per") was the last name of the person who first wrote about it. Most of the things in the Kupier belt are
hard to see through telescopes.After the Kuiper belt comes the Oort cloud. Scientists think this is where comets
come from. It is very far away, many more times further away than Pluto is from the Sun (over a thousand times). It
is near the edge of the Solar System. (Yes, "Oort" was the last name of the person who first wrote about it.)
Zodiacal light and an aurora
In between all the other things is dust. The pieces of dust are very far apart, but they shine in the light of the
Sun. Before dawn in September or October, they glow in the east. We call this the zodiacal glow.
When pieces of space dust hit the Earth's atmosphere, they burn brightly. We call them shooting stars or
meteors.
Beyond that is a lot of empty space. The nearest star to our Sun is thousands of times further away than the
size of the entire solar system. The Universe is a really huge place!
What holds it together?
Why do all of the planets orbit the Sun? Why do moons orbit planets? Why doesn't the Sun move off and
leave the planets behind? The answer to all of these questions has to do with gravity. Gravity is a force that is a
property of mass. It pulls things together.
We don't notice the pull from the Sun because it is so far away. But the Sun's gravity is strong enough to
keep the Earth from shooting away. Even though the Earth is going fast, it keeps turning to go around the Sun. It is
like they were tied together with an invisible string. In the same way, moons orbit many of the planets. They are kept
there by gravity. The Sun itself does not sit still in space. The entire Solar System is orbiting the center of our galaxy.
The whole thing stays together because of the force of gravity.
About gravity, mass, and weight
Mass just means the stuff everything is made of. Two bananas have twice the mass of one banana. The more
mass a thing has, the more gravity pulls it and the more its gravity pulls other objects. We don't notice the pull from
a banana because it is so much less than the pull from the Earth. If you stand on the ground and let go of a banana,
gravity will pull it down towards the center of the Earth. It will hit the ground. If you could throw the banana hard
enough at the right angle, it would go into orbit around the Earth. That is how rockets put astronauts into orbit. If

you threw the banana really, REALLY hard in the right direction, it would fly away from Earth and never come back;
but our arms are not that strong.
The force of gravity from any thing is strongest very close to that thing, and weaker further from it. Scientists use
weight to mean how hard gravity pulls us. Astronauts weigh less on the moon because it has less mass. It does not
pull as hard. We actually weigh a tiny bit less on top of a tall mountain than we do in a lower place. This is because
we are farther from most of the Earth.
Who discovered the Solar System?
Anyone who looks up at the sky enough on clear nights can see seven bright objects. These are the Sun, our
Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. People have known about them for a very long time. Ancient
people thought they were related to gods. In Babylon, they named the days of the week after them. Almost
everyone was sure that all these things were orbiting the Earth. They did not know we lived in a Solar System.
In 1543, Nicholaus Copernicus figured out that the planets orbit the Sun. Only the Moon orbits the Earth. But
he was afraid to say so for most of his life. Then Galileo Galilei pointed a telescope at the sky. He found moons
orbiting Jupiter. He was certain Copernicus was right, and he got in trouble for saying so. It took seventy years to
convince scientists that the planets orbit the Sun. Now, almost everyone on Earth understands that we live in a Solar
System.
People made better telescopes and found more things in the sky moons, new planets, and asteroids. More
things are being found today. Recently, astronomers found some things a lot like Pluto. One of them, called 2003
UB313, is bigger than Pluto. Maybe it should be called a planet. Maybe Pluto should not be called a planet any more.
How have we explored the Solar System?
Before the telescope, people explored the sky with their eyes. They saw how the planets seemed to
"wander" through the sky. They learned to predict where the Sun, the moon, and planets would be in the sky. They
built some observatories -- places for watching the sky. They watched the Sun and stars to tell the time of year. In
China, they even knew when the moon would block the Sun. Most people thought that celestial bodies could cause
war or peace on Earth.
After telescopes were first made, people kept making them better. Astronomers saw that planets are not like
stars. They are worlds, like the Earth. They could see that some planets have moons. They began to think about what
these worlds were like. At first, some thought that the other planets and moons had people or animals living on
them. They thought about how it would be to live on these other worlds. Then they made telescopes better and saw
that there are no plants or animals on the Moon or on Mars.
Now, we can explore by going to some of the other worlds. Twelve Astronauts walked on the Moon about 30
years ago. They brought rocks and dirt back to Earth. Spacecraft flew by Venus, Mars, and the outer planets. The
pictures they took showed us a lot of what we know about these worlds. Robots landed on Mars in 1971, 1976, and
1997. They took thousands of pictures of the planets. Two robots, "Spirit" and "Opportunity", are working on Mars
right now. They send photos and movies back to Earth. They also check rocks to find out what the rocks are made of.

So far, we have not found any life except on Earth. Maybe tiny one-celled life once lived on Mars. Maybe
there is life under the ice on Jupiter's moon Europa. New spacecraft are being planned to look for life on these
worlds.
How was it formed?
Our Solar System is part of the Milky Way galaxy. Galaxies are big mixes of dust, gas, stars, and other things.
Inside our Milky Way galaxy are clouds of dust and gas where stars are born. Our Solar System was created in this
kind of cloud. A part of the cloud began to get smaller and less spread out. It formed a big, spinning disk of gas and
tiny pieces of dust. This disk was thickest at the middle. The middle slowly collapsed until it became the Sun. We are
still trying to learn how the planets were formed. Most scientists think that they were formed from the left over gas
and dust.
The Sun and planets start to form out of a disk of dust and gas.
This is how it could have happened. The rest of the disk continued to spin around the Sun. The tiny pieces of
dust hit each other and some of them stuck together, next the bits of dust slowly collected to form grains, these in
turn joined to form lumps the size of gravel, then pebbles, and then rocks. The rocks crashed together into
mountains. The mountains crashed together to make bigger things. These big things swept up most of the rest of the
disk to form the planets, moons, and asteroids.
The Sun got hotter as it collapsed. It began to glow. The temperature at the center reached a million degrees.
The Sun started to make a lot of light and heat. This light and heat swept away most of the leftover dust and gas
between the inner planets. This light and heat are the sunlight we see and feel every day on Earth.
What will happen to the Solar System?
The massive rapidly aging star Eta Carinae throws off a giant cloud of gas, forming a planetary nebula.
In about five billion years, the Sun will use up most of its hydrogen fuel. It will enter the final stages of its life.
It will collapse, and then the outer layer of the Sun will expand. It will form a red giant.
It will be so big that some of the planets will be inside it. These planets will burn away. Which planets get
destroyed will depend on how much mass the Sun loses. A strong solar wind will blow some of the outer layers of gas
away from the Sun. The Sun will have less mass. The Sun’s gravity will be less. The planets will move further away
from the Sun.
After becoming a red giant, the Sun will start to burn helium and shrink. It will not be a red giant any more. It
will use the helium up in about one hundred million years. Then it will become a red giant again. More gas will blow
away for a few hundred thousand years.
A planetary nebula will form. It could last for a few thousand to a few tens of thousands of years. It will glow
in the light of the Sun.
At the center, the Sun might shrink into a small star called a white dwarf. That kind of star is about the size of
Earth. It would take about 100 of these white dwarfs to equal the size of the Sun today. The Sun will not have any

more fuel. It will have lots of heat left over and keep getting cooler and dimmer. Then its light will go out in a
hundred billion years from now.
Stellar Spectral Types (STARS)
Stars can be classified by their surface temperatures as determined from Wien's Displacement Law, but this
poses practical difficulties for distant stars. Spectral characteristics offer a way to classify stars which gives
information about temperature in a different way - particular absorption lines can be observed only for a certain
range of temperatures because only in that range are the involved atomic energy levels populated. The standard
classes are:
Temperature
O 30,000 - 60,000 K Blue stars
B 10,000 - 30,000 K Blue-white stars
A 7,500 - 10,000 K White stars
F 6,000 - 7,500 K Yellow-white stars
G 5,000 - 6,000 K Yellow stars (like the Sun)
K 3,500 - 5,000K Yellow-orange stars
M < 3,500 K Red stars
The commonly used mnemonic for the sequence of these classifications is "Oh Be A Fine Girl, Kiss Me".
ECLIPSE
An eclipse is an astronomical event that occurs when an astronomical object is temporarily obscured, either
by passing into the shadow of another body or by having another body pass between it and the viewer. An eclipse is
a type of syzygy.
The term eclipse is most often used to describe either a solar eclipse, when the Moon's shadow crosses the
Earth's surface, or a lunar eclipse, when the Moon moves into the Earth's shadow. However, it can also refer to such
events beyond the Earth-Moon system: for example, a planet moving into the shadow cast by one of its moons, a
moon passing into the shadow cast by its host planet, or a moon passing into the shadow of another moon. A binary
star system can also produce eclipses if the plane of the orbit of its constituent stars intersects the observer's
position.
Earth-Moon System
An eclipse involving the Sun, Earth and Moon can occur only when they are nearly in a straight line, allowing
one to be hidden behind another, viewed from the third. Because the orbital plane of the Moon is tilted with respect
to the orbital plane of the Earth (the ecliptic), eclipses can occur only when the Moon is close to the intersection of
these two planes (the nodes). The Sun, Earth and nodes are aligned twice a year (during an eclipse season), and
eclipses can occur during a period of about two months around these times. There can be from four to seven eclipses
in a calendar year, which repeat according to various eclipse cycles, such as a saros.
As observed from the Earth, a solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes in front of the Sun. The type of
solar eclipse event depends on the distance of the Moon from the Earth during the event. A total solar eclipse occurs
when the Earth intersects the umbra portion of the Moon's shadow. When the umbra does not reach the surface of
the Earth, the Sun is only partially occulted, resulting in an annular eclipse. Partial solar eclipses occur when the
viewer is inside the penumbra
Lunar eclipses occur when the Moon passes through the Earth's shadow. Since this occurs only when the
Moon is on the far side of the Earth from the Sun, lunar eclipses only occur when there is a full moon. Unlike a solar
eclipse, an eclipse of the Moon can be observed from nearly an entire hemisphere. For this reason it is much more
common to observe a lunar eclipse from a given location. A lunar eclipse also lasts longer, taking several hours to
complete, with totality itself usually averaging anywhere from about 30 minutes to over an hour


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LICENSURE EXAMINATION FOR TEACHERS REVIEW HAND OUTS

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

The Scientific Method

Steps of the Scientific Method:

LIFE SCIENCE (BIOLOGY)

LET Science Handout-page1

What Are Abiotic Components?

What are Biotic Components?

LET Science Handout-page2

An Ecological relationship is the relationship between organisms in an ecosystem. All organisms in an

LET Science Handout-page3

Competitive exclusion principle

LET Science Handout-page5

LET Science Handout-page6

2nd Part of the Nitrogen Cycle

The Rock Cycle - Weathering

Matter and Its Properties

Physical and Chemical Changes

LET Science Handout-page8

Observable Properties of Matter

Extensive and intensive properties

LET Science Handout-page9

Classify each of the following as an extensive or intensive property.

1.The volume of beer in a mug ext; depends on size of the mug.

Homogeneous and heterogeneous: it's a matter of phases

LET Science Handout-page10

Pure Substances and Mixtures

LET Science Handout-page11

LET Science Handout-page12

Physical and Chemical Properties

Chlorine is a greenish-yellow gas at room temperature.

Liquid oxygen is attracted by a magnet.

Gold is highly resistant to corrosion.

LET Science Handout-page13

Hydrogen cyanide is an extremely poisonous gas.

Sugar is a high-energy food.

LET Science Handout-page14

A simple electrical circuit. This

Series and Parallel Circuit

LET Science Handout-page16

Here, we have three resistors (labeled R1, R2, and R3),

And, of course, the complexity doesn't stop at simple series

Work, Energy and Power

LET Science Handout-page17

There are two types of energy in many forms:

Kinetic Energy = Energy of Motion

Potential Energy = Stored Energy

Heat Energy -- a form of energy that is transferred by a difference in temperature

Calculating Work, Energy and Power

Gravitational Potential Energy

LET Science Handout-page18

work done by gravity = W = mgh (h = height lost by the object)

The Conservation of Mechanical Energy

ASTRONOMY AND BEYOND

How far is the Earth to the sun?

How big is the Earth?

LET Science Handout-page20

Why is there life on Earth?

What about the Earth's moon?

How long is a day on this planet?

How long is a year on this planet?

What is it made of:

LET Science Handout-page21