Lesson 1: What is Energy?
Everything that moves, heats up, makes sound, or produces light is using energy. Energy is the ability to do work — to make something happen.
Energy comes in many forms: the energy stored in your muscles when you wind up for a golf swing, the energy in a moving ball, the energy of sound when club meets ball.
One of the most important things about energy: it cannot be created or destroyed. It can only change from one form to another. This is called the Law of Conservation of Energy.
When you swing a golf club, energy transfers from your muscles to the moving club to the ball flying through the air. At every step energy is changing form — never disappearing.
Energy is the ability to do work or cause change. It cannot be created or destroyed — only transformed from one form to another.
In a golf swing: muscle energy → moving club → moving ball → ball in flight.
Clap your hands together hard. Your hands were moving (kinetic energy), now they feel warm (heat energy), and made a sound (sound energy). You just transformed energy — the same thing happens when a club hits a ball.
Energy chain drawing: draw the full chain of energy in a golf shot, starting from eating breakfast all the way to the ball landing on the green. Label each step and draw an arrow showing where energy goes next. How many steps can you find?
The chain from breakfast to golf ball is genuinely long: food → muscles → swing → club motion → ball motion → heat and sound on landing. Following it builds systems thinking. Extend it backward if your child is curious: where did the food’s energy come from?