Metals

Ferrous metals has iron in and they corrode and rust when they meet any moisture, they are also magnetic. Normally cast iron or steel.
Non ferrous metals are the opposite to ferrous, they are more expensive, aluminium, copper, lead, tin, zinc.
Alloys are two materials mixed together to make a new substance which might make it stronger.
Working is where you work it too hard so you need to anneal it by heating it up then quenching it fast so you can work with the metal.
Hardening is a process that makes the inside of the metal hard by heating it up fast then quenching it. The carbon in the steel is effected and becomes stronger.
Tempering is a process that makes the outside strong by heating up mainly steels and quenching them, it makes the outside cote brittle and grey.
you can buy metal in sheets, rods, blocks, bars and square sections.
Normalising is a process that allows you to obtain smaller crystals of more regular size this makes the metal stronger and tougher.

what i know about wood

there are two types of wood soft which are evergreen, they grow pine cones and hard wood which is deciduous, they grow fruit.
hard woods take longer to grow so they are normally expensive and tend to be dark colours, unlike soft wood which is cheap and a lighter colour.
an organisation called FSC makes sure that when trees are cut down they are re-planted. their is a logo on the wood that ensures that product is grown and cut to FSC standards.

Plywood

Plywood's are manufactured to be cheap and use leftover scraps of wood to combine them together to form a man made board. The good things about plywood are: you can order them in any size and thickness and they will come out to your exact specification. Laminated is where you put a protective layer over the wood which enables it to be waterproof. Veneer is where you have cheap board and you put a thin layer of wood that looks good on top of the board. Hardboard and MDF are made of fibres and are stuck together with ureaformaldahyde which can be toxic when cutting the wood. There is a nw board called hexy board and is hexagons alined together and is grippy, strong and non slip. You can get MDF and plywood in flexy board which means it is easier to bend.