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Interactive
Vocabulary University

My vocabulary.com: Physics: Electricity

For Students 9th - 10th
This page offers three fill-in-the-blank vocabulary puzzles using a bank of 36 words on the topic of Physics: Electricity. It also provides an extensive electricity word list and also lists by levels: beginner, intermediate, and advanced.
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Handout
Other

Westinghouse Electric Co.: George Westinghouse

For Students 9th - 10th
A brief biography from the company that bears his name. George Westinghouse was a prolific inventor, and this biography recounts his many inventions, beginning with the air brake which greatly increased safety on the railroads.
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Unit Plan
Channel 4 Learning

4 L: Science Essentials: Get Physical

For Students Pre-K - 1st
Find a review of many aspects of the physical world. Simple explanations of electricity, gravity, and the solar system. Included are materials for teachers to use for enrichment.
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Unit Plan
Florida State University

Florida State University: Magnet Lab: Discovery of Electromagnetism

For Students 9th - 10th
Two scientists share the credit for discovering, and then interpreting, the phenomenon of electromagnetism.
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Article
Florida State University

Florida State University: Magnet Lab: What Is a Bus Room?

For Students 9th - 10th
The MagLab's bus tunnel has an aluminum track, but it doesn't carry passengers: it carries electricity, up to 56 megawatts of it.
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Unit Plan
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory

Magnet Academy: Alternating Current

For Students 9th - 10th
Alternating current behaves differently, depending on what components are in a circuit.
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Unit Plan
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory

Magnet Academy: Current Flow

For Students 9th - 10th
This tutorial illustrates how the flow of water through a system of pipes can be used to understand the flow of current through an electric circuit.
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Unit Plan
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory

Magnet Academy: Capacitor

For Students 9th - 10th
A capacitor is similar to a battery in that both store electrical energy. But a capacitor can't actually produce new electrons; it only stores them.
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Unit Plan
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory

Magnet Academy: Dc Motor

For Students 9th - 10th
Electric motors turn electricity into motion by exploiting electromagnetic induction.
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Unit Plan
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory

Magnet Academy: Pixii Machine

For Students 9th - 10th
This "magneto-electric machine" was the first to turn motion into electricity. (Java tutorial)
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Unit Plan
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory

Magnet Academy: Oersted's Compass

For Students 9th - 10th
Recreate the discovery by Hans Christian Oersted about the relationship between electricity and magnetism in this very simple experiment.
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Interactive
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory

Magnet Academy: Wheatstone Bridge

For Students 9th - 10th
This circuit is most commonly used to determine the value of an unknown resistance to an electrical current.
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Interactive
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory

Magnet Academy: Transmission Lines

For Students 9th - 10th
Electricity goes through some ups and downs on its way from the power plant to your house. See how it works in this interactive activity.
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Handout
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory

Magnet Academy: Oersted's Compass 1820

For Students 9th - 10th
Compasses had been steering people in the right direction for many centuries when, in the year 1820, one particular compass made a very different sort of revelation to an unsuspecting Danish science professor.
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Handout
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory

Magnet Academy: Wheatstone Bridge 1843

For Students 9th - 10th
Read about the device used for measuring resistance in a circuit which was discovered in 1843, but had been invented a decade earlier. The inventor's name was not Wheatstone.
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Unit Plan
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory

Magnet Academy: Wimshurst Machine 1880

For Students 9th - 10th
In the modern world, virtually everyone is familiar with electricity as an accessible, essential form of energy. In electricity's earlier days, scientists used the buildup and release of static electricity.
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Handout
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory

Magnet Academy: William Gilbert

For Students 9th - 10th
William Gilbert was an English physician and natural philosopher who wrote a six-volume treatise that compiled all of the information regarding magnetism and electricity known at the time. The work included descriptions of many of...
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Handout
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory

Magnet Academy: William Thomson, Lord Kelvin

For Students 9th - 10th
William Thomson, known as Lord Kelvin, was one of the most eminent scientists of the nineteenth century and is best known today for inventing the international system of absolute temperature that bears his name. He made contributions to...
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Handout
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory

Magnet Academy: Nikola Tesla

For Students 9th - 10th
Awarded more than 100 patents over the course of his lifetime, Nikola Tesla was a man of considerable genius and vision. He was reportedly born at exactly midnight during an electrical storm, an intriguing beginning for a man who would...
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Handout
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory

Magnet Academy: Wilhelm Weber

For Students 9th - 10th
Find out more about German physicist Wilhelm Weber, who developed and enhanced a variety of devices for sensitively detecting and measuring magnetic fields and electrical currents.
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Handout
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory

Magnet Academy: James Watt

For Students 9th - 10th
The Scottish instrument maker and inventor James Watt had a tremendous impact on the shape of modern society. His improvements to the steam engine were a significant factor in the Industrial Revolution, and when the Watt engine was...
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Activity
Exploratorium

Exploratorium: Science Snacks: Magnetic Pendulums

For Students 9th - 10th
See how electricity and magnetism interact with this activity. Activity has students creating a current by swinging a copper coil through a magnetic field. The copper coil will start a second coil swinging as well.
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Activity
Exploratorium

Exploratorium: Science Snacks: Modulated Coil

For Students 9th - 10th
Can you hear a magnet? In this activity you will be able to transfer the sound from your iPhone, iPod or radio to a cassette-tape player.
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Activity
Exploratorium

Exploratorium: Science Snacks: Cup Speaker

For Students 9th - 10th
This activity will have students creating their own speaker with a paper cup, coil of wire, and magnet. The speaker operates by changing electric current into sound.