What are physical processes?

Physical processes are the ways things change or move around when you do something to them, like pushing, pulling, heating, or cooling.

Imagine you're playing with building blocks. When you push a block, it moves, that’s a physical process called motion. If you stack blocks on top of each other and then knock one over, the rest might fall down too, that's another kind of physical process, like gravity at work.

Sometimes, things get warmer or colder. Like when you leave your ice cream in the sun, it melts! That’s a physical change because the ice cream still stays ice cream, just not solid anymore. It's like going from a block of ice to liquid, still water, just different shapes.

Or think about when you blow up a balloon and then let it go, whoosh! It zooms around the room. That’s air moving inside the balloon pushing it forward, another physical process called pressure.

Sometimes things even change shape or color, like when you squeeze a sponge, it gets smaller, but if you let go, it goes back to normal. That's also a physical process!