Elementary Science Vocabulary Words

Are you looking for some elementary science vocabulary words? Following are three lists of words and their definitions.

Elementary Science Vocabulary Words

Here are thirty elementary science vocabulary words which are grouped into living things, weather words, and astronomy. Their definitions are also included.    

Living Things:

• amphibians - animals with backbones (vertebrates) that can live in water or on land
• bird - a warm-blooded animal with feathers that lay eggs
• cold-blooded -  an animal whose blood temperature changes with the outside temperature
• ecosystem - living and non-living things that live together in an area and depend on each other for survival
• extinct - a species is extinct when all the animals within it die 
• greenhouse effect - when shortwave radiation passes through the atmosphere and heats it and then heats the earth
• habitat - the area where an organism lives
• mammals -  animals with backbones (vertebrates) who are warm-blooded and produce milk
• reptile - cold-blooded animals with scales or plates that lay eggs
• warm-blooded - these animals’ blood temperature remains fairly constant no matter what the outside temperature is

Weather Words: 

• anemometer - an instrument that is used to measure the wind’s speed
• atmosphere  - all the gases and water vapor that surround a body, like the earth; the air
• barometer -  an instrument that used to measure the atmospheric pressure
• condensation - when a gas changes into a liquid
• evaporation - when a liquid changes into a gas
• front - the area where two air masses touch
• hurricane - a very large rotating storm that forms over tropical waters
• precipitation - any type of water that falls to the earth; snow, sleet, hail, rain, etc
• tornado - a strong storm with a rotating column of air which often has high winds, heavy rain, lightning, and thunder
• water cycle -  the movement of water from the surface to the air and back to the surface; evaporation, condensation, and precipitation

Astronomy:

• asteroid - a rock or minor planet that revolves around the sun
• comet - a small, frozen mass of dust and gas revolving around the sun
• eclipse - the blocking of our view of a body in space caused by the earth’s shadow or another body
• meteor - when a chunk of rock or debris enters the atmosphere and burns up; a shooting star
• planet - a body orbiting around a star
• orbit - the path an object takes as it travels around another object in space
• revolution  - one body in space moving around another body
• rotation - when an object turns on its axis
• solar system - all the bodies that revolve around the sun.
• star - a body that shines because of the release of energy from nuclear reactions

Online Resources

Now that you have seen the lists of elementary science vocabulary words, you might also like to know about some great sites online to use as resources.

• Harcourt School.com has a very good dictionary for grade levels one through six. The definitions are also illustrated.

• UEN.org has games to play for grades three to six. There is between 9 and 15 games for each grade level covering various topics, like weather, animals, electricity, and gravity.
• Salem.k12 has a Jeopardy game for third grade science students. The regular Jeopardy has points from 100-500 and has these topics: water cycle, soil, earth patterns, simple machines, matter, and energy.  Double Jeopardy has points from 200-1000 and has these topics: metric system, animal habitats, food chain, animal behaviors, natural disasters, and potluck.  Students can play in front of the computer or you can print out the questions and answers and play in the classroom.  Here is an example:

Energy for 100 points:

Answer: Light and heat energy are provided for the earth by this

Question: What is the sun?

Metric System for 200 points:

Answer: Your finger is about as wide as one of these

Question: What is a centimeter?

Food Chains for 600 points: Answer: An animal that hunts and eats other animals

Question: What is a predator?