40 Science and Nature Trivia Questions for Kids
The easiest science and nature questions in the game, picked for younger players. Every one comes with the answer and a short explanation of why it is right.
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Easy Science and Nature Questions and Answers
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Which evolutionary process can make helpful inherited traits more common?
Natural selection
Natural selection can make helpful inherited traits more common because individuals with those traits tend to survive and reproduce more, passing them to their offspring. Over many generations, this process can produce adaptations such as camouflage.
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What is the chemical symbol for silver?
Ag
Silver is represented by Ag, derived from the Latin word argentum.
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Which physicist developed the theory of relativity?
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein developed the special and general theories of relativity.
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The SI unit of electric potential honours which Italian scientist?
Alessandro Volta
The volt, the SI unit of electric potential, is named for Alessandro Volta.
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What is the name for the larval stage of a frog?
Tadpole
A tadpole typically begins life with gills and a tail, then develops lungs and legs during metamorphosis. Its adult form is adapted for life on land as well as in water.
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The centigrade temperature scale honours which Swedish scientist?
Anders Celsius
The Celsius scale is named after Anders Celsius, who proposed it in 1742.
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Antibiotics are medicines designed primarily to treat infections caused by what?
Bacteria
Antibiotics are medicines designed to treat infections caused by bacteria. They do not work against viruses, which is why they cannot treat illnesses such as colds or the flu.
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Which ancient Greek formulated the buoyancy principle?
Archimedes
Archimedes formulated the principle explaining buoyant force in fluids.
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What does an element's atomic number tell you?
Number of protons
An element's atomic number is the number of protons in each atom's nucleus.
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What stream of charged particles from the Sun helps cause auroras?
The solar wind
The solar wind blows steadily outward from the Sun. Earth's magnetic field funnels some of those particles down towards the poles, where they collide with atmospheric gases and make them glow, most often the green of excited oxygen.
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What is the chemical symbol for calcium?
Ca
Calcium is Ca. It is the metal locked into the mineral of bones and teeth, and into limestone, chalk and seashells.
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Why do stars appear to twinkle when viewed from Earth?
Atmospheric turbulence refracts starlight
Moving pockets of air at different temperatures refract starlight in changing ways. Planets usually twinkle less because their apparent disks average out some of that variation.
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Which chemical symbol represents iron?
Fe
Iron's symbol Fe comes from its Latin name, ferrum. Iron is the main structural metal in steel and is also essential for hemoglobin in red blood cells.
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What thin, wispy cloud forms high in the atmosphere?
cirrus
Cirrus clouds are thin, wispy clouds found at high altitudes.
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Why does a person's breath become visible outdoors on a cold day?
Condensation
Water vapor in exhaled air condenses into tiny droplets in the cold air.
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What process makes warmer, less-dense air rise while cooler air sinks?
convection
This circulation drives everyday weather, from sea breezes that form as coastal air heats unevenly to the towering clouds inside a thunderstorm. The same principle, on a vastly slower scale, moves molten rock in Earth's mantle and helps drive the motion of tectonic plates.
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What causes the Coriolis effect?
Earth's rotation
It deflects moving air and water to the right in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left in the Southern Hemisphere, which is why hurricanes spin counterclockwise north of the equator and clockwise south of it. The effect is zero at the equator and strongest near the poles.
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What is the chemical symbol for copper?
Cu
Copper is represented by Cu, derived from the Latin word cuprum.
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What tall cloud type is commonly linked with thunderstorms?
cumulonimbus
Cumulonimbus clouds are tall, vertically developed clouds associated with thunderstorms.
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What puffy, cotton-like cloud often appears in fair weather?
cumulus
Cumulus clouds are rounded and puffy and commonly form in fair weather.
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Who wrote the landmark book On the Origin of Species?
Charles Darwin
Darwin's book presented evolution by natural selection as a mechanism for species change. Alfred Russel Wallace independently developed a similar idea and helped prompt Darwin to publish.
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Which biological group commonly acts as a decomposer in ecosystems?
Fungi
Fungi are widely identified as decomposers in ecosystems, including forests, where they break down organic material.
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What does DNA stand for?
Deoxyribonucleic acid
Deoxyribonucleic acid carries genetic instructions in nearly all living organisms, named for the deoxyribose sugar in its backbone.
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What causes the different colors in a typical fireworks display?
Different metal salts
Heated metal salts emit characteristic wavelengths of visible light.
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About when did the non-avian dinosaurs go extinct?
About 66 million years ago
The extinction occurred at the boundary between the Cretaceous and Paleogene periods. Evidence points to the Chicxulub asteroid impact as the main trigger, alongside severe environmental disruption.
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What molecule carries hereditary information in most living organisms?
DNA
DNA holds the instructions for building an organism's proteins, written in a four-letter chemical alphabet. It is copied every time a cell divides and passed from parent to offspring, which is why traits run in families.
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Which desert is commonly cited as the driest nonpolar desert on Earth?
Atacama Desert
Parts of Chile's Atacama receive less than a millimeter of rain in an average year. Its dryness results from cold offshore water, subtropical high pressure, and rain-shadow effects from the Andes.
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What is dry ice?
Solid carbon dioxide
Dry ice is the solid form of carbon dioxide rather than frozen water.
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What causes seasonal changes?
Earth's axial tilt
Earth's axial tilt changes the angle and duration of sunlight received by each hemisphere over the year.
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What role does a green plant usually play in a food chain?
A primary producer
Green plants produce organic food using light energy, so they form the producer level of food chains.
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What force provides the inward acceleration for a planet orbiting the Sun?
Gravity
Gravity attracts masses and provides the inward acceleration that maintains planetary orbits around the Sun.
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Which fossil fuel formed mainly from ancient swamp plants?
Coal
Coal formed from plant material buried in oxygen-poor swamps and transformed by heat and pressure over millions of years. Petroleum and natural gas mostly formed from ancient microscopic marine organisms.
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Paleontologists and archaeologists are often mixed up. What does a paleontologist study?
Fossils of ancient life
Paleontology reconstructs life from the distant past through fossils, which is why dinosaurs belong to paleontologists rather than archaeologists. Archaeology studies the human past through what people made and built, stratigraphy reads rock layers, and ancient scripts fall to epigraphy.
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Which is the hardest naturally occurring mineral on the Mohs scale?
Diamond
Diamond ranks 10, the highest value on the Mohs hardness scale. Its carbon atoms are locked into a very strong three-dimensional crystal lattice.
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What is the relatively calm center of a hurricane called?
The eye
The eye is the central region of a mature tropical cyclone, surrounded by the eyewall's strongest winds.
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What term describes a non-native organism that spreads through a new habitat and damages it?
An invasive species
An invasive species is one carried outside its native range that establishes itself, spreads and causes ecological or economic harm. Introduced species that settle in without doing damage are called naturalized instead.
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The SI unit of force honours which English scientist?
Isaac Newton
The newton, the SI unit of force, was named after Isaac Newton.
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Why does ice float in a glass of water?
Its density is lower than the surrounding liquid's.
Ice's open crystal structure makes it less dense than liquid water.
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The SI unit of energy honours which British physicist?
James Prescott Joule
The joule is named for James Prescott Joule, the Salford brewer's son who showed that heat and mechanical work are interchangeable by churning water with a falling-weight paddle wheel and measuring how much it warmed.
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The SI unit of power honours which Scottish scientist?
James Watt
The watt was named after James Watt, the Scottish engineer.
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