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DKfindout! Energy
From light and heat to magnetism and electricity, explore energy with this children's book full of photographs and illustrations, fascinating facts, and engaging challenges--from the creators of DKfindout.com, DK's free online resource for kids.
Did you know that lighting can be more than five times hotter than the surface of the sun? Or that the world's most powerful wind turbine has blades longer than nine buses? Find out why!
Perfect for energetic young scientists who want a highly visual STEM book to increase their science know-how, DK findout! Energy is sure to inspire the next amazing science fair project or school report. Inside, author Emily Dodd breaks down what energy is and why it's so important.
With this DK findout! book, you will:
- Learn about the different types of energy, including kinetic energy, potential energy, and chemical energy
- Read about the discoveries of brilliant scientists such as Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin, and Marie Curie
- See how sound energy travels, how conductors and insulators work, and how electricity flows through a circuit
- Watch the chemical explosion that occurs when a firework is lit
- Discover renewable energy sources and ways we can conserve, or save, energy
- Hear from real-life scientist Dr. Canan Dagdeviren at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Fold out the cover for an energy quiz, timeline, and "energy web"
- and find out much, much more!
The DK findout! series of kids books helps children become experts on their favorite nonfiction subjects, from dinosaurs and ancient civilizations to space, coding, and cutting-edge technology.
Did you know that lighting can be more than five times hotter than the surface of the sun? Or that the world's most powerful wind turbine has blades longer than nine buses? Find out why!
Perfect for energetic young scientists who want a highly visual STEM book to increase their science know-how, DK findout! Energy is sure to inspire the next amazing science fair project or school report. Inside, author Emily Dodd breaks down what energy is and why it's so important.
With this DK findout! book, you will:
- Learn about the different types of energy, including kinetic energy, potential energy, and chemical energy
- Read about the discoveries of brilliant scientists such as Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin, and Marie Curie
- See how sound energy travels, how conductors and insulators work, and how electricity flows through a circuit
- Watch the chemical explosion that occurs when a firework is lit
- Discover renewable energy sources and ways we can conserve, or save, energy
- Hear from real-life scientist Dr. Canan Dagdeviren at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Fold out the cover for an energy quiz, timeline, and "energy web"
- and find out much, much more!
The DK findout! series of kids books helps children become experts on their favorite nonfiction subjects, from dinosaurs and ancient civilizations to space, coding, and cutting-edge technology.
64 pages, Paperback
Published July 10, 2018
9 people are currently reading
20 people want to read
About the author
D.K. Publishing
10.3k books2,151 followersDorling Kindersley (DK) is a British multinational publishing company specializing in illustrated reference books for adults and children in 62 languages. It is part of Penguin Random House, a consumer publishing company jointly owned by Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA and Pearson PLC. Bertelsmann owns 53% of the company and Pearson owns 47%.
Established in 1974, DK publishes a range of titles in genres including travel (including Eyewitness Travel Guides), arts and crafts, business, history, cooking, gaming, gardening, health and fitness, natural history, parenting, science and reference. They also publish books for children, toddlers and babies, covering such topics as history, the human body, animals and activities, as well as licensed properties such as LEGO, Disney and DeLiSo, licensor of the toy Sophie la Girafe. DK has offices in New York, London, Munich, New Delhi, Toronto and Melbourne.
Source: Wikipedia.
Established in 1974, DK publishes a range of titles in genres including travel (including Eyewitness Travel Guides), arts and crafts, business, history, cooking, gaming, gardening, health and fitness, natural history, parenting, science and reference. They also publish books for children, toddlers and babies, covering such topics as history, the human body, animals and activities, as well as licensed properties such as LEGO, Disney and DeLiSo, licensor of the toy Sophie la Girafe. DK has offices in New York, London, Munich, New Delhi, Toronto and Melbourne.
Source: Wikipedia.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 2, 2023
DKfindout! Energy introduces its concept to young readers. Energy is all around us, and in us, existing in many different forms, and making everything go. Energy is a fundamental concept in physics, which is the science fundamental to all other sciences. To understand any natural process it helps to know what energy is and how it behaves.
The book doesn't mention the laws of thermodynamics by name but focuses mainly on the first one, namely that the sum of energy in the universe is constant. Energy can convert from one form to another, even to and from matter, but it can never be created or destroyed. However, without the equally important second law of thermodynamics, a young (or old) reader might not understand how we seem to run out of energy. If energy is all around us and can never be destroyed, why can't we just keep using the same energy over and over? Why do we need to keep buying more energy from the electric company each month? Why isn't one meal enough to give us all the energy we need for a lifetime?
The answer is that while energy can convert freely from one form to another, the different forms of energy have differing capacities to perform useful work. As a general rule, each time energy converts to a different form, some of its original capacity to do work is lost. This is why things decay and fall apart on a human scale, and why the entire universe is slowly running downhill. The ability of a form of energy to do work is called its "availability" (the portion that is available to do useful work) and that is what we really consume each time we consume "energy." All the energy we purchase from the electric company still exists after we use it, but it has degraded from the highly available form of electricity into less available forms like noise and ultimately heat that has cooled to the surrounding temperature.
When young readers get a bit older they'll want to tackle the tricky second law of thermodynamics. The Laws of Thermodynamics: A Very Short Introduction is a good place to start, along with reading a proper physics textbook or taking a course and learning the math.
I noticed two quasi-errors in the book, along with a massive understatement:
1. Page 12 illustrates potential energy with the archer's bow:
Because the string itself is fairly inelastic (the string doesn't lengthen much when the archer draws it back), the string doesn't store energy so much as merely transmit it. First the string transmits energy from the archer's fingers to the bow itself. The bow stores energy by bending back (elastic deformation). When the archer releases the string, the bow releases its stored energy by snapping forward, pulling the string forward with it. This transmits energy back through the string to the arrow.
Also, even though it's common to speak of "firing" an arrow, strictly speaking there is no fire involved. Rather, the arrow "shoots." The reference to firing may be a somewhat anachronistic reference to early firearms such as matchlocks, which used a movable smoldering wick to literally fire the gunpowder in a pan to propel the bullet. As firearms became common, the act of firing them was used to describe the launching of projectiles by other means, such as by the older bows, catapults, and slings that didn't use fire. So now we have a word that literally doesn't make sense.
2. The book refers to coal deposits laid down when dinosaurs were alive:
While that is true for some coal deposits, it isn't true for all of them. Some coal was formed after the dinosaurs went extinct, and even more was formed before dinosaurs existed, during the Carboniferous era named for its prolific coal-forming.
Furthermore, taxonomists increasingly classify birds as dinosaurs (because birds evolved from dinosaurs), so it's best to refer to "non-avian dinosaurs" when you mean the famous ones that died out.
3. The book mentions man-made global warming, but in a very understated way:
This doesn't begin to inform children about the climate timb bomb their parents' and grandparents' generations are inflicting on them. I understand that nobody wants to talk about climate change, especially people who contribute to it, but it's only fair to tell the victims of this colossal intergenerational theft just how thoroughly they are getting harmed. The cover-up is worse than the crime. Somday, the kids are going to find out, when nature comes to collect on the debt their parents ran up. Children need to start preparing as soon as possible for the climate nightmare that awaits them.
The book doesn't mention the laws of thermodynamics by name but focuses mainly on the first one, namely that the sum of energy in the universe is constant. Energy can convert from one form to another, even to and from matter, but it can never be created or destroyed. However, without the equally important second law of thermodynamics, a young (or old) reader might not understand how we seem to run out of energy. If energy is all around us and can never be destroyed, why can't we just keep using the same energy over and over? Why do we need to keep buying more energy from the electric company each month? Why isn't one meal enough to give us all the energy we need for a lifetime?
The answer is that while energy can convert freely from one form to another, the different forms of energy have differing capacities to perform useful work. As a general rule, each time energy converts to a different form, some of its original capacity to do work is lost. This is why things decay and fall apart on a human scale, and why the entire universe is slowly running downhill. The ability of a form of energy to do work is called its "availability" (the portion that is available to do useful work) and that is what we really consume each time we consume "energy." All the energy we purchase from the electric company still exists after we use it, but it has degraded from the highly available form of electricity into less available forms like noise and ultimately heat that has cooled to the surrounding temperature.
When young readers get a bit older they'll want to tackle the tricky second law of thermodynamics. The Laws of Thermodynamics: A Very Short Introduction is a good place to start, along with reading a proper physics textbook or taking a course and learning the math.
I noticed two quasi-errors in the book, along with a massive understatement:
1. Page 12 illustrates potential energy with the archer's bow:
Potential energy is stored in objects that are ready to do something. When we pull back the string of a bow, we store energy in the string, ready to fire the arrow.
Because the string itself is fairly inelastic (the string doesn't lengthen much when the archer draws it back), the string doesn't store energy so much as merely transmit it. First the string transmits energy from the archer's fingers to the bow itself. The bow stores energy by bending back (elastic deformation). When the archer releases the string, the bow releases its stored energy by snapping forward, pulling the string forward with it. This transmits energy back through the string to the arrow.
Also, even though it's common to speak of "firing" an arrow, strictly speaking there is no fire involved. Rather, the arrow "shoots." The reference to firing may be a somewhat anachronistic reference to early firearms such as matchlocks, which used a movable smoldering wick to literally fire the gunpowder in a pan to propel the bullet. As firearms became common, the act of firing them was used to describe the launching of projectiles by other means, such as by the older bows, catapults, and slings that didn't use fire. So now we have a word that literally doesn't make sense.
2. The book refers to coal deposits laid down when dinosaurs were alive:
Coal contains energy from the Sun that was stored by plants that were alive when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.
While that is true for some coal deposits, it isn't true for all of them. Some coal was formed after the dinosaurs went extinct, and even more was formed before dinosaurs existed, during the Carboniferous era named for its prolific coal-forming.
Furthermore, taxonomists increasingly classify birds as dinosaurs (because birds evolved from dinosaurs), so it's best to refer to "non-avian dinosaurs" when you mean the famous ones that died out.
3. The book mentions man-made global warming, but in a very understated way:
Greenhouse gases
The gases in our atmosphere trap some of the heat from the Sun around the Earth, just like a greenhouse. Burning fossil fuels produces carbon dioxide gas, which traps heat. Too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere causes the planet to warm up.
This doesn't begin to inform children about the climate timb bomb their parents' and grandparents' generations are inflicting on them. I understand that nobody wants to talk about climate change, especially people who contribute to it, but it's only fair to tell the victims of this colossal intergenerational theft just how thoroughly they are getting harmed. The cover-up is worse than the crime. Somday, the kids are going to find out, when nature comes to collect on the debt their parents ran up. Children need to start preparing as soon as possible for the climate nightmare that awaits them.
May 24, 2019
This book is aimed at children - the language is kept simple for children, the layout is good for children with the bringing together of "brilliant images and key information", the chunks of text are bitesize so can be taken in a bit at a time and things are related to everyday objects making them easier to understand, e.g. explosions are due to pressure which is presented via the example of a bike tyre, too much air pumped in and it explodes, making it relatable. Although the book is aimed at kids it is great for adults too. I (as an adult) enjoyed and learnt something from this book as well as my children.
The "brilliant images" are great visual inspirations for children. However with a science book like this some of the pictures maybe lose a bit of impact compared with actually seeing something in real-life. For example there is a chemical experiment shown across 3 stills which would be best seen in person or via video. Similarly static electricity on a balloon holding up hair is shown in a couple of pictures but would be better actually to experience or see in person. However this is not DK's fault, this is the limitations of a print book. And some things are better understood via the 2D diagrams anyway, e.g. the submarine sonar or microwaves - the diagrams showing the waves.
The book covers lots. It starts with a fold out cover showing "energy through time" before the real content kicks off with "what is energy?" before it covers many different types of energy - kinetic, potential, light, chemical, sound, nuclear, electrical and magnetic are included.
There is plenty of educational content in here presented very well. There is also an accompanying website, dkfindout.com, to check out. Thank you DK.
The "brilliant images" are great visual inspirations for children. However with a science book like this some of the pictures maybe lose a bit of impact compared with actually seeing something in real-life. For example there is a chemical experiment shown across 3 stills which would be best seen in person or via video. Similarly static electricity on a balloon holding up hair is shown in a couple of pictures but would be better actually to experience or see in person. However this is not DK's fault, this is the limitations of a print book. And some things are better understood via the 2D diagrams anyway, e.g. the submarine sonar or microwaves - the diagrams showing the waves.
The book covers lots. It starts with a fold out cover showing "energy through time" before the real content kicks off with "what is energy?" before it covers many different types of energy - kinetic, potential, light, chemical, sound, nuclear, electrical and magnetic are included.
There is plenty of educational content in here presented very well. There is also an accompanying website, dkfindout.com, to check out. Thank you DK.
March 8, 2020
Very informative and filled with facts, illustrations and photos with a quiz at the front my 7 year old son enjoyed this book
September 7, 2024
Again, this DKfindout! series explains really tough topics in an easy-to-understand way. I so appreciated this, as engineering is generally not in my realm of understanding 🤭
September 29, 2022
Adhrit, class 3C
This book is very interesting and useful to read. I'm impressed how much I've learnt only from one book. I learnt many stuff about different types of energy like decibels (sound), potential energy, kinetic energy, heat and light.
It was excellent.
This book is very interesting and useful to read. I'm impressed how much I've learnt only from one book. I learnt many stuff about different types of energy like decibels (sound), potential energy, kinetic energy, heat and light.
It was excellent.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews