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I meant "lost" in the sense that it is no longer useful to do something. Why does the car stop? The energy is "lost" to heat, etc.
Students can understand conservation but they need something concrete to be able to say why the car stopped.
Thus I use "lost" in quotes to indicate the energy is not useful.
They know it is not lost as such but the quotes has come to have meaning to them when they explain what is happening.
I would argue that the "meaning" we should concentrate on with our
students is in the conservation of the energy in the system, the
"loss" of the energy from useful to wasted energy, or concepts like
those, rather than what the word itself means.