Project Title:

Electricity in Everyday Life

Brief Description of Project:
The most common things in our lives sometimes are the hardest to explain. An example is electricity. It's hard to imagine our lives without electrical power, but just try explaining electricity to someone. It's not as easy as you think, since most of our understanding of it is still based largely on theory.
A good way to explain a phenomenon like electricity to your students is to *show* or demonstrate it to them.
 

Grade Level:
5-9

Desired Number of Participants (if collaboration with other classes):
Class divided into teams of two

Project Timeline:
90 min

Curriculum Subject Area(s):
Science, Physics, Health and Safety

Objectives of Project:
The student will:

Materials/Resources: (List Both on-line and off-line materials/resources needed)

On-line:
http://www.mos.org/sln/sln.html.
Off-Line:
quiz, pencil and paper
 

Procedure(Step by step instructions for developing the project):
Divide your class into teams. Give them the following list of questions (taken from the Learning Center site.) Their job is not only to supply the correct answer, but also the URL where they found the answer

A Lightning Safety Quiz
1.  Where is the safest place to be during a lightning storm?

2. Using a telephone during a lightning storm is dangerous. (True or False)

3. A car is a safe place to be in an electrical storm because it has rubber tires. (True or False)

4. The average number of people who die in the United States each year from being struck by lightning is about

5. The greatest number of people who die from being struck by lightning are: Quiz Answers

1.  1. C) By far the safest place to be during an electrical storm is in a house or building. The metal plumbing and wiring in the walls of the building form a protective barrier. It is important to remember not to be touching that metallic cage, i.e. stay away from electrical appliances, plumbing fixtures, etc.

2. TRUE Lightning can strike telephone and electrical wires and travel into your house, through your phone cord, into your telephone, to the handset, and SHOCK you! Cordless phones are not dangerous because there is no physical connection to the wires. It is, however, rude to use your cordless phone during an electrical storm to call your neighbor who does not have a cordless phone.

3. FALSE While cars are a very safe place to be, it is not the tires that protect you! This is a very common misconception. It is actually the metal that is surrounding you that affords the protection. This is due to something called the Skin Effect which says that electricity, like lightning, will travel only on the surface of enclosed metal objects. So while your car may be hit by lightning, as long as you stay inside, you are safe. This is of course provided that you have a metal car that is not a convertible. Incidentally, your tires would have to be about a mile thick and made of solid rubber to afford you adequate protection.

4. B) About 100 people die each year in the United States as the result of being struck by a lightning bolt.

5. C) According to a study by Dr. Martin A Uman, in his 1971 book, "Understanding Lightning," 29 percent of those killed were farmers. This compares to 19 percent being golfers, and nearly 15 percent were fisherman. Joggers were not mentioned in the study.

Extensions to other subject areas:
One fun way to use the learning center from your classroom is to devise a "treasure hunt" quiz that requires students to search the Web site for answers to questions.

Student Evaluation Method:
Completed quiz with URLs

Project Evaluation