SOCIAL AND NATURAL SCIENCE

Modern Age Glossary

absolute monarchy: form of government where the king or queen has absolute power on all aspects of his or her subjects’ life.

architect: a person who designs buildings.

astrolabe: ancient instrument used by navigators and astronomers to determine latitude, longitude and time of day. It also determines the altitude of the Sun, planets, stars and Moon.

authoritarian monarchy: the politic system in which the kings in 15th Century have all the power.

bourgeois: the inhabitant of walled towns, formed by craftsmen, merchants…

caravel: a light sailing ship with two or three masts and lateen sails used by the Spanish and Portuguese in the 15th and 16th Centuries.

Classical culture: name given to the influence of Ancient Greek or Roman civilizations on language, philosophy, art… in the Renaissance.

clergy: the official leaders of a religious belief. colonisation: n. the act or process of establishing colonies.

compass: an instrument that is used for finding directions. It has a dial and a magnetic needle that always points to the North.

craftsman: a man who makes things skilfully with his hands.

decline: the period when something approaches an end.

Discovery: the act of discovering a place or a thing.

Golden Age: a flourishing period in arts and literature that took place in Spain during the 16th and 17th Centuries.

literature: name given to all creative writing of recognised artistic value.

Modern Age: the term used by historians to refer a period in the History from 1492 (Discovery of America) until 1789 (French Revolution).

navigation: the guidance of ships from place to place.

painter: an artist who paints.

patron: a person who supports and gives money to artists, writers or musicians.

peasant: a person who works on the land.

portolan charts: European navigation maps based on realistic descriptions of harbours and coasts.

Renaissance: means re-birth. A cultural movement that spanned roughly from the 14th Century to the 17th Century. It began in Italy and it later spread to the rest of Europe.

sculptor: a person who creates sculptures.

sextant: navigational instrument used to measure the altitude of a celestial object above the horizon and to determine its latitude and longitude.

silk: valuable/delicate cloth made from the fine treads produced by certain insect larvae.

spice: any of a variety of pungent or aromatic vegetable substances used to for seasoning food.

writer: a person who writes books, stories or articles as a job.

The Enlightenment: a philosophical and cultural movement in the eighteenth century that stressed human reasoning over blind faith and encouraged scientific thinking.

ART in the RENAISSANCE

Many of the new ideas and attitudes that marked the Renaissance times were portrayed in art. A new idea called humanism put a focus on human interests, needs, and abilities. This new idea changed how artists painted their subjects as well as the choice of subjects they painted. 

Renaissance art is often divided up into two periods: 

Early Renaissance (1400-1479) - Artists learned by trying to emulate classical artists focusing on symmetry and creating the perfect form. This era featured such artists as Giotto, Masaccio, and Donatello. 

High Renaissance (1475-1525) - A rising interest in perspective and space gave the art even more realism. Great artists such as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and Rafael flourished during this period. 

Change of Subjects: 

In the Middle Ages the subject of almost all European art was religion, specifically Christianity and the Catholic Church. Although Renaissance artists continued to paint religious paintings, they also branched out to other subjects including Greek and Roman mythology, historical subjects, and portraits of individuals. They also focused on the details of everyday life. 

 
School of Athens by Raphael featured philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates.

Realism:

One of the big changes in art was to paint and sculpt subjects realistically. This is called realism and involves a number of techniques that make the subjects and background look like they would in real life. This also meant giving the subjects more emotional qualities. 

New Techniques and Styles: 

Many new techniques were introduced during the Renaissance. These techniques helped to enhance the quality and realism of the art. 

Perspective - perspective is drawing or painting a picture such that it looks like there are three dimensions. It gives the illusion that some objects in the painting are further away than others. 

Balance and Proportion - Drawing subjects such that they are the correct size when compared to each other. 

Use of Light and Dark - Many artists starting using light and shadows in their works to add drama, perspective, and timing to their art. 

 
Caravaggio used light and shadow to create drama

Sfumato - This was a technique used by Leonardo da Vinci to add additional perspective and dimension to paintings. It was a way of blurring the lines between subjects. This technique was used in Leonardo’s Mona Lisa. 

 
The Mona Lisa used the sfumato technique

Foreshortening - Another technique that added perspective and depth to paintings, foreshortening is a way of shortening lines to give the illusion of depth. 

 

See also Renaissance for Kids.

Life in The Middle Ages

The IBERIAN PENINSULA during THE MIDDLE AGES

 

 

Ten Fast Facts about THE MIDDLE AGES

1. The Middle Ages refers to a time in European history from 400-1500 AD. It occurred between the fall of the Roman Empire and the discovery of America (beginning of the Renaissance).

2. Historians usually divide the Middle Ages into three smaller periods called the Early Middle Ages, the High Middle Ages, and the Late Middle Ages.

3. During much of the Middle Ages, people in Europe were fighting against the Islamic Empire to take back the Eastern Mediterranean, especially Jerusalem, for the Christian religion. These wars were called the Crusades.

4. The Middle Ages was defined by a Feudal system in much of Europe. This system consisted of kings, lords, knights, vassals and peasants. The people who were part of the church played an important part also. When a person was born into a certain group, they rarely moved to another level.

5. The Feudal system was the law of the land, and the way that the upper class maintained control over the lower class. The upper class provided protection to the lower class and in exchange, the lower class worked for the upper class. The kings and lords lived in castles and were attended to by their personal servants, called vassals. The soldiers that fought for the king and lords were called knights. When conflict arose, the peasants would leave their fields and villages and come into the safety of the castle walls.

6. Kings ruled by what they believed was their "Divine Right". This meant they believed God made them the King, and their kingdom was passed down through generations.

7. Many fairy tales have their roots in the Middle Ages. When you read about castles and the characters that lived and around them, these stories are being told about this time in history.

8. Castles were built for the lords and kings who lived in them. The bigger and stronger the castle was, the wealthier the person who had it built was. The poor lived in huts made from sticks, straw and mud.

9. The church had a great influence over the people. The peasants believed that the harder they worked, the more of their money they gave to the church, and the more they served the church, the better the after-life would be for them.

10. By the early 1300s, however, Europe suffered from both war and disease. The wars were made much worse by the Black Death, or bubonic plague, which spread along the Silk Road from China to Europe starting in 1328, killing millions of people and causing the collapse of the Mongol Empire. By the 1400s, after the plague, Europe looked very different, and the wars were over, and Middle Ages were coming to an end.

CASTLES

If you want to learn more about the parts of a castle, what they have inside them, and the people that live in a castles, and even make your own paper castle, click on the image below.

NUMANTIA (NUMANCIA in Spanish)

Numantia is the name of an ancient Celtiberian settlement, whose remains are located 7 km north of the city of Soria, on a hill known as Cerro de la Muela in the municipality of Garray.

Numantia is famous for its role in the Celtiberian Wars. In the year 153 BC Numantia experienced its first serious conflict with Rome. After 20 years of hostilities, in the year 133 BC the Roman Senate gave Scipio Aemilianus Africanus the task of destroying Numantia. He laid siege to the city, erecting a nine kilometre fence supported by towers, moats, impaling rods and so on. After 13 months of siege, the Numantians decided to burn the city and die free rather than live and be slaves.

Read more.

THE ROMAN EMPIRE

 Learn a bit more about the Romans by clicking here.

 

Spain: PREHISTORY AND ANCIENT CULTURES

GEOGRAFÍA

A través de estos mapas interactivos os ofrecemos una amplia gama de recursos educativos para poder conocer la geografía española a todos los niveles de una manera amena.

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Esperamos que os guste.

MORE ABOUT SIMPLE MACHINES

SIMPLE MACHINES

Fancy playing a game on SIMPLE MACHINES while learning a bit more about them?

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KINETIC AND POTENTIAL ENERGY

Physical and Chemical Properties of Matter

 

Each phase of matter has its own chemical and physical properties.

Phases of Matter

The phases of matter are:

• Solid – which has a definite shape and volume
• Liquid – which has a definite volume, but can change shape
• Gas - the shape and volume of a gas can change

Phase Changes of Matter

There are several ways in which phases of matter can change from one to another:

• Melting - melting occurs when a substance changes from a solid to a liquid
• Boiling - boiling is when a substance changes from a liquid to a gas
• Condensing - condensation is when a gas changes to a liquid
• Freezing - freezing is when a liquid changes to a solid

Classes of Changes in Matter

The changes that take place in substances may be categorized in two classes:

• Physical Change – a new substance is not produced and just the physical properties are changed. For example - phase changes, or crushing a can
• Chemical Change – a new substance is produced with different chemical properties. For example: burning, rusting, and photosynthesis.

Solutions

Sometimes, when two or more substances are combined it results in a solution. Making a solution can produce either a physical or chemical change. When there’s a physical change in a solution, the original substances can be separated from one another. If a chemical change takes place while creating a solution, the original substances cannot be separated from one another.
Physical and Chemical Properties of MatterEach phase of matter has its own chemical and physical properties.

Changes of matter

Click on the image to see videos and play games related to the States of Matter.

States of Matter

There are five main states of matter. Solids, liquids, gases, plasmas, and Bose-Einstein condensates are all different states of matter. Each of these states is also known as a phase. Elements and compounds can move from one phase to another phase when special physical forces are present. One example of those forces is temperature. The phase or state of matter can change when the temperature changes. Generally, as the temperature rises, matter moves to a more active state.

Phase describes a physical state of matter. The key word to notice is physical. Things only move from one phase to another by physical means. If energy is added (like increasing the temperature or increasing pressure) or if energy is taken away (like freezing something or decreasing pressure) you have created a physical change.

One compound or element can move from phase to phase, but still be the same substance. You can see water vapor over a boiling pot of water. That vapor (or gas) can condense and become a drop of water. If you put that drop in the freezer, it would become a solid. No matter what phase it was in, it was always water. It always had the same chemical properties. On the other hand, a chemical change would change the way the water acted, eventually making it not water, but something completely new.

MATTER WEBQUEST

Do you want to complete this Webquest about Matter?

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A COMMENT FROM...

Irene (5ºA) wants to share this information with all of you:

I found information about the state of light and the state of sound. Did you know light could be in a solid state? It’s a type of lightning which uses semiconductor light-emitting diodes (OLED) or polymer light-emitting diodes (PLED) as sources of illumination on rather than electrical filaments, plasma, or gas.
What state of matter does sound travel the fastest? Solids transmit sounds fastest, and farther. The more dense the material is, the better sound could be counducted.
Temperature also affects the speed of sound.
(I know this is a little bit complicated, but I love Science!)

Thank you Irene!!!

THE THREE STATES OF MATTER

Matter is the Stuff Around You

Matter is everything around you. Matter is anything made of atoms and molecules. Matter is anything that has a mass. Matter is also related to light and electromagnetic radiation. Even though matter can be found all over the universe, you usually find it in just a few forms. As of 1995, scientists have identified five states of matter. They may discover one more by the time you get old.

You should know about solids, liquids, gases, plasmas, and a new one called Bose-Einstein condensates. The first four have been around a long time. The scientists who worked with the Bose-Einstein condensate received a Nobel Prize for their work in 1995. But what makes a state of matter? It’s about the physical state of molecules and atoms.

Do you want to know more about matter? Click here.