History of Electricity
By: Declan Leary, Shaun O’Neil, and Rocco Menino

When you walk into a room and switch on the lights, you probably never think much about this, but without electricity, you wouldn’t be able to do this. Can you imagine a world without electricity?

It all started around 600 B.C. with a Greek man named Thales. He discovered that by rubbing two materials together, he could create an electric charge that we now call static electricity. I know, it wasn’t much, but it was way ahead of its time, and it was really important.  This was only the beginning of a long line of discoveries, the end of which hasn’t even come yet more than 2,000 years later!

The next major discovery didn’t come until a lot later.  In 1745, Georg von Kleist, an inventor from Germany, invented a machine that could store electricity. You’ve got to give the guy some credit. I mean, what’s the point of having electricity if it can’t even be stored and nobody can even use it?

Years later, in 1752, Ben Franklin made the next major discovery that had to do with electricity. You’ve seen pictures of the guy flying a kite around in a thunderstorm. You must think that that is pretty childish and stupid. I mean, who would ever believe that the guy was making one of the most important discoveries in the history of electricity? What he did was tie a key to a kite to see if lightning was attracted to it, because all electricity is attracted to metal, so if it was, lightning was a type of electricity, so it was actually pretty smart after all.

Have you ever seen one of those movies when mad scientists make dead things move using electricity? Well who would ever believe that that has really happened? Well not exactly, but pretty close. An Italian professor named Luigi Galvani was experimenting when he realized that when he shocked a frog with electricity, it would move its legs!

People use batteries every day in toys, radios, and remote controls. Have you ever wondered who invented them? Have you ever heard of a guy named Alessandro Volta from Italy? Probably not, but he invented the battery in the year 1800. He soaked a piece of paper in salt water, put zinc on one side, copper on the other, and that made an electric current. Pretty simple, right? But by connecting a bunch of these, he made a battery.

Additional Facts

1. The term “volt” comes from the name of Alessandro Volta.

2. The word “electricity” was first used in the year 1600 by an Englishman named William Gilbert.

3. Benjamin Franklin also invented bifocal glasses, was one of the founding fathers, and made many improvements to everyday life in the town including a hospital, a fire department, a post office, an insurance company, and a library.

How Can We Save Energy Electricity?
By:  Kaitlyn Brown

There are so many ways to save energy.  There are ways that don’t take long and can actually save you time and money. For instance, taking shorter showers and turn off the lights when you don’t need it.  That includes carpooling and not watching T.V. as much as you do now. Just doing this much will help the environment.

Do You Think We Can Live With Out Electricity?

We interviewed our 5^th grade class.  The question was “Do you think we can live without electricity?  Two people voted yes and 13 people voted no.  We probably could but it wouldn’t be easy as life is now.  We wouldn’t have showers, sinks, light, and we probably wouldn’t live as long, without being clean and healthy!

What could we not live with out?

Most of our class said that they could not live without T.V. and showers. (the choices were TV, showers, sinks, lights or cars). Imagine not living with all this stuff.  But you can reduce the amount of time you spend watching TV or taking less showers.  Every little bit will help.

Energy Electricity and How We Can Save It

Energy electricity is really important to our world and without it we would have no light, no showers, no lights and all the other things that use electricity.  That’s why we need to work on saving it by recycling; taking shorter showers and turn off the lights when you don’t need them.  That will also actually save your money!  By using fluorescent bulbs we can also save energy and they are better to the planet.  Most people use light and showers the most because those are the things most people use daily, and without showers we would not be clean and healthy. Without light we wouldn’t be able to see anything when it was dark out side.  An average American uses about as much energy stored in seven gallons of energy, so it’s very important that we really try our hardest to save energy electricity and not use it as much if possible.  

Watts and Lots of Watts 
By Joey Green Zacaria Bouhalloufa and Noah Francke

ZAM!!! Did you know that watts run through things like light bulbs, lightning and even your own body? Watts are a way of measuring electricity. Light bulbs have 100-watts compared to lightning bolts which have billions and billions of watts. Both of these are energy sources but are very different because of their watts.

Watts come in many varieties such as nanowatts, microwatts, milliwatts, kilowatts, megawatts, gigawatts, terawatts, and petrawatts.  The watt was discovered by man named James Watt in 1763. The biggest watt he discovered was a petawatt and the smallest a nanowatt. There are different amounts of watts in each different watt like how a pettawatt has quadrillion watts in it and a nanowatt has a billionth of a watt.

There are many ways to measure electricity such as meters, pipes, tanks, watts, and more. The nanowatt Is equal to one billionth of a watt, the microwatt equals one millionth of a watt, milliwatts equal To one thousandths of a watt, kilowatts equal one thousand watts, a megawatt has a million watts, gigawatts have one billion watts, terawatts have one trillion watts, and finally a petawatt is equal to one quadrillion watts. Watts are the bomb!

Fun Square

Electricity – An Energy Source
By: Connor Morris, Bryce Krause, and Zachary Schut

Electricity is a secondary energy source. It can come from different types of energy.  Electricity powers a lot of things. Things like natural gas and propane also power things.  Electricity is made in power plants. There are different types of power plants that make electricity like hydropower, solar power, and nuclear power. 

Magnetic fields and electricity are like a circle. The two need each other to work. Magnets can make electricity and electricity can make a magnetic field. 

How is energy produced?  Inside of a power plant, a turbine is attached to a generator. The power plant uses coal, oil, and natural gases to spin the turbines. Other sources to turn a turbine are wind and water. The current from the water and the wind direction and speed help turn the turbines. Each turbine inside the power plant contains a copper wire that has electrons loosely held that will scratch against other metals, like aluminum, and the electrons will transfer creating a magnetic field.  When you flip a switch on, the circuit becomes closed.  When the switch is flipped off, the circuit is an open one.  So next time you turn on your lights – think about where the electricity is coming from.

You Can Help
By: Emma Schneider, Rachael Dineen, and Alex Fontes

What is a battery?

A battery is an electrochemical device with the ability to send chemical energy to electrical energy to give the electric object power.

There are 2 types of batteries:

(1) Primary-the ones that cannot be reused (heavy duty, lithium)

(2) Secondary-rechargeable, those that can be reused (lead-acid)

Batteries contain strong metals such as mercury and lead which will hurt the environment if they are not properly disposed.
Sooo…

Don’t burn batteries, the metals will vaporize and pollute lakes and streams etc.

Recycle batteries, if you don’t then the batteries may be burnt or will Jleak into the soil. That is not good for the environment.

So where can I recycle my batteries?

Usually the places were you purchase your batteries you can recycle them too. (Best Buy, Staples, Target, and Home Depot) You can also recycle rechargeable batteries their too. So please recycle all your batteries if you don’t already.

What happens to batteries when they are recycled?

They are crushed into nickel sized pieces

They take away the plastic parts 

They send the plastic to be made into different items

They deliver purified lead to battery industries

A typical lead-acid battery contains about 60%-80 % recycled lead and plastic.

How many batteries do YOU own?

People are buying more and more batteries. The average person owns about 2 button batteries, (mercuric oxide, lithium, alkine) 10 normal batteries (A, AA, AAA, D, D6) and throws away about 8 batteries a year. About 3 billion batteries are sold annually in the U.S. averaging about 32 batteries a family or 10 per person. Americans purchase about 3 billion batteries a year to power small objects. (Like radios and flashlights)