Electricity and magnetism

Monthly project ideas

Earth as a magnet (poles, magnetic field)

Commercial magnets (tvs, speakers, junkyards, etc)

Permanent v. temporary magnets

Electromagnets

Electric circuits

Generators

Electric motors

Wind power

Water power

How electricity gets to your house

Power lines

Static electricity

Experiments involving electricity or magnetism

Charles Coulomb

Nikoli Tesla

Georg Ohm

Hans Christian Oersted

Circuit boards

House wiring

Batteries and how they work

Electricity in the body (brain, nerves)

Lightning

Monorails (train)

Study guide

Concepts:

series v. parallell wiring with diagrams

earth as a magnet

how a magnet is structured and what would happen if it broke

diagram and description of dry cell

how fuses work and different types of fuses

what to do if lights go out in your house

Vocabulary:

ohm

volts

circuit

open and closed circuit

magnetosphere

magnetic field

magnetic lines of force

load

amperes

circuit breaker

resistance

conductor/insulator

current

hot bus bar

switch

v=IR

conduit

temporary/permanent magnet

electric cell

w =va

Notes:

Electricity

electricity magnetism result of positive/negative charges

electric force - like repel, opposite attract

protons, electrons

electric charge measured in coulombs (c)

static electricity when charges transferred due to motion

current - flow of e-

amperes - measures current

miliamps - mA

Coulomb's Law - force between two charged particles related to number of charges and distance

electric potential - push given to electrons

measured in volts

closed circuit - complete path for e-

open circuit - break in path

conductors - object that lets electricity flow easily

insulator - object that does not let electricity flow easily

resistance - measurement of how difficult for e- move through object

measured in Ohms

Ohm's law - predicting the flow of amps

V(volts) = I(current) x R(resistance)

load - part of circuit uses electricity

circuit breaker - used to detect amount of heat and current - cuts off if excess

electric discharge - transfer of electric cahrges

electric cell (battery) - converts chemical energy to electric energy

terminals and electrolyte, dry cell and wet cell

direct current - flows in one direction

alternating current - current repeatedly changes direction

watts - energy per second

volts - potential difference, pressure causing current to flow

panel box - lever disconnect, pull out block, single main or multiple main

hot bus bar - divides current into smaller useable portions

parallel wiring - hot and neutral wires run one box to another

series wiring - hot wire passes through all lights before joining neutral wire

switch - open closes circuit

conduit - tubes carries wire

fuses - contains allow with low melting point

amp too great strip melts breaking circuit

edison base fuses - screws in 30 amps

type S - required in new installations 120 v

cartridge - ferrule - 10-60 amps, knife blade 70+ amps

Magnets

two sides called poles

force of attraction and repulsion

all magnets have north and south

earth is a large magnet

magnetoshpere - area surrounding earth

magnetic field - magnetic force surrounding magnet

magnetic lines of force - lines representing magnetic field

temporary magnet - easy to magnetize, easy to lose

permanent magnet - longer to magnetize, keeps longer

magnetic induction - process of magnetizing an object

Hans Christian Oerstad - 1800's

straight line of wire with current creates magnetic field

put wire into loops (solenoid) became like a bar magnet

more current, more loops - stronger field

created electromagnet

each atom has circulating e- so has its own magnetic field

generator - loop of wire placed in magnetic field - as coils rotates creates current

electric motor - electric energy into mechanical energy - uses current to create magnetic field

Electricity journal

Seven days

Keep track of major household appliance use - dryer, electric heat, oven, tv, lights

Read house meter each day at same time of day and record kilowatt hours