DOES your little brother or sister cry when the light Is turned off at bed time? Do you use an alarm clock to wake up in the morning? Do you like toast for breakfast? In all of these cases electricity Is the common factor. Did you know that electricity travels almost at the speed of light: 186.000 miles a second? In this report, I have researched answers to some important questions on electricity. I hope that they will help you to know more about it.

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Electricity .is a form of energy. It is produced when tiny atomic particles move from one atom to another. The word "electricity" is originally taken from the Greek word "elektron," meaning amber. More than 2500 years ago. in Greece, Thales of Miletes discovered that amber attracts cork or feather when it is rubbed. The knowledge of how electricity is produced has been around for about one hundred years.

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In nature, materials have an equal number of positive and negative charges. However, should such a material lose or gain electrons, then, accordingly, the material is said to have become positively or negatively charged. For example, if a balloon is rubbed with a piece of cloth, electrons pass from the cloth to the balloon. So. the balloon becomes negatively charged, while the cloth becomes positively charged.

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Electricity helps us in various ways, whether in flash lights, running cars, using cellular phones, ultra sound machines (it is a machine used to check how babies are doing in their mummies' tummies), electronic microscopes. computers, and key boards, to name a few. If a car does not start in winter, it is because its battery is low or dead. We charge flash guns to take pictures indoor. Nurses use electrical probes in our ears to read our body temperatures. Electricity helps us in very many other ways.

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While in nature electricity is seen in flashes of lightning. people can make electricity in many different ways. Thermal electricity was probably the first way we made electricity. Two pieces of wires made of two different metals are attached to each other at two ends. The ends are placed in the different temperatures. Then electricity is produced in the joined wire. We could call this a circuit. Then there were the chemical cells, like today's batteries, for making electricity. Flowing water in hydroelectric dams, steam in nuclear power plants, and wind power mechanically generate electricity by turning a coil between the opposite poles (that is North and South poles) of two different curved magnets. These are. then, some of the other ways of making electricity.

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Ben Franklin did not discover electricity. By flying a kite in a thunderstorm he proved that there is electricity in a lightning bolt.

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Electricity does differ from magnetism, even though they are similar in many ways. Magnets and electricity both carry charges. They both have force fields. However, no matter what is placed between magnets the force field still works. On the other hand, there has to be a conducting material between two electrically charged objects for any discharge to take place.

I am amazed when 1 think about the various ways we can get electricity and how many different things we can do with it. Surely, many more uses of electricity wait to be discovered in the future. I enjoyed reading my sources on electricity. I hope this report motivates you to read about electricity because my six questions did not tell everything about electricity.

The writer is a Grade 4 student of Ms. Lenard. Cornelia Elementary School. Edina. Minnesota.