Year 9 physics knowledge organiser – energy resources
This knowledge organiser is designed to help students revise energy resources based on the AQA GCSE Combined Science (trilogy) and Physics specifications. It provides key knowledge structured to reduce cognitive load and is issued at the start of each topic. The gapped version of the organiser allows students to test their recall.
The content covered in this worksheet includes:
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Energy background: The concept of energy, its emergence in the 19th century, and its applications in steam engines, heat engines, chemical reactions, and biological systems. It also addresses the limits of fossil fuels and the challenges of global warming.
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Energy challenges: This section explores the reliability of different types of energy resources and the environmental impacts associated with their use. It discusses the controlled release of energy from fuel, such as fossil fuels, and the storage of thermal energy, gravitational potential energy, and kinetic energy in different energy resources like geothermal, hydroelectric, and tidal energy. It also highlights the environmental impacts of using non-renewable energy resources, burning fossil fuels, using biofuels, constructing tidal barrages and large hydroelectric dams, and generating nuclear power.
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Key terms: The knowledge organiser includes definitions and explanations of important terms such as energy resource, energy demands, non-renewable resources, renewable resources, fossil fuels, biofuels, wind energy, hydroelectricity, geothermal energy, and tidal energy.
This knowledge organiser serves as a valuable resource for students to review and prepare for their science lessons, as well as for homework assignments related to energy resources.
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Browse more resources on related subjects, including energy sources, energy stores and energy transfers.
An extract from the 'Energy challenges' section of the knowledge organiser:
What are the environmental impacts arising from the use of different energy resources?
Burning fossil fuels produces CO2 and other harmful gases. CO2 is a major greenhouse gas and makes a significant contribution to global warming.
Biofuels can result in the loss of land for agriculture or the destruction of pristine forests.
Tidal barrages can destroy important wetland habitats and disrupt migration routes for some species.
Large hydroelectric dams flood agricultural land, forests and wildlife habitats, as well as human communities.
They can result in rivers downstream of the dam drying up. This effect may occur many miles away from the dam and even in a different country.
Nuclear power produces radioactive waste. High-level waste requires many thousands of years to decay into intermediate-level waste.
