Glossary - C

Taken from the new Key Stage 3 Exploring Science textbook

by Mark Levesley, Sandra Baggley, Julian Clarke,
Steve Gray, Marc Pimbert

Capsule		A small space vehicle - a capsule usually only carries two or three people.
Carpel	car-pull	Female reproductive organ found in flowers,. Is made of stigma, style and ovary.
Cell (in biology)	sell	The basic unit which living things are made of
Cell (in physics)	sell	It contains a store of chemical energy that can produce electricity (the scientific name for a battery).
Cell-division		One cell divides into two new cells.
Cell membrane	sell mem-brain	Controls what goes into and out of a living cell
Cellulose	sell-you-loze	Substance from which cell walls are made.
Cell sap		Substance found inside a vacuole
Cell wall		Tough wall around plant cells. Helps to support the cell.
Celsius	sell-see-us	Degrees Celsius - the units for temperature (°C)
Centipede	sent-ip-eed	Anthropod with long, thin body divided into sections. One pair of legs on each body section.
Cervix	sir-vicks	Ring of muscle at the bottom of the uterus in females.
Chemical energy		The kind of energy stored in chemicals. Food, fuels and batteries all contain chemical energy.
Chlorine	klor-een	A chemical added to water to kill bacteria.
Chlorophyll	klor-O-fill	Green substance found inside chloroplasts.
Chloroplast	klor-O-plast	Green disc containing chlorophyll. Found in plant cells and used to make food by photosynthesis.
Chromatogram	krow-mat-O-gram	The dried piece of paper produced by chromatography.
Chromatography	krow-mat-og-graph-ee	Separating dissolved solids from one another. The solids are usually coloured.
Chromosome	crow-mow-sOme	Thread-like strands contained in the nucleus of cells. They contain the instructions for a living thing.
Ciliated	sill-ay-ted	Cells having cilia are 'ciliated'.
Ciliated epithelial cell	silly-ay-ted eppy-theel-ee-al	Cell found in the lungs.
Cilia	silly-a	Small hairs on the surface of some cells.
Circulatory system	serk-you-late-or-ee	Set of organs that carry oxygen and food around the body.
Circumcision	sir-cum-siz-shun	Removal of the foreskin.
Classification	clas-if-ik-ay-shun	Sorting things into groups
Cnidarian	nid-air-y-an	Invertebrates with thin sack-like bodies (e.g. jellyfish).
Coal		A fossil fuel made from the remains of plants.
Cold-blooded		Animal with a body temperature that changes with the surroundings.
Common-salt		A chemical we use to make things taste 'salty'.
Concentrate		We concentrate a solution by adding more of the solute to it.
Condenser		A piece of apparatus that cools down gases to turn them into liquids.
Condensing		A gas turning into a liquid.
Conduction	con-duck-shun	The way heat travels through solids.
Conductor		A material that lets energy travel through it easily.
Cone		Something used to carry the seeds of conifers.
Conifer	con-if-er	Plant with needle-shaped leaves. Reproduces using seeds found in cones.
Conservation of energy		See Law of Conservation of Energy Constellation
con-stell-ay-shun		A pattern of stars.
Contact force		A force that needs to touch an object before it can affect it (e.g. friction).
Contraction	con-track-shun	When something is getting smaller.
contractions	con-track-shuns	The uterus starts to push out the baby during labour.
Convection	con-veck-shun	A way that heat travels through liquids and gases
Convection current	con-veck-shun	A flow of liquid or gas caused by part of it being heated or cooled more than the rest.
Cord		Carries food, oxygen and waste between the placenta and the growing fetus
Corrosive	cor-row-sive	Substances that attack metals, stonework and skin are called corrosive
Coverslip		Thin piece of glass used to hold a specimen in place on a slide.
Cross-pollination		Transfer of pollen from an anther to a stigma of a different plant.
Crustacean	crust-ay-shun	Arthropod with chalky shell and 5-7 pairs of legs (e.g. lobster).
Cutting		A side stem is cut off a plant and allowed to sprout roots to make a new plant.
Cytoplasm	site-O-plaz-m	Jelly inside a cell where the cell's activities happen.