Draw a sketch of how YOU think electricity is made and how it gets to your house. Label as many things as you can. Write a short paragraph explaining the sketch.

 All solids, liquids, and gases are made of tiny particles called atoms.  Atoms are made of even smaller particles called protons, neutrons, and electrons.

 Protons and neutrons are held together tightly in the nucleus at the center of an atom, but electrons swarm around the nucleus in all directions.  Protons and electrons have electric charge, but neutrons have no electric charge.

 Two types of electric charge—positive and negative.  Protons --- positive charge  Electrons --- negative charge.  Amount of negative charge on an electron = Amount of positive charge on a proton.  Atom becomes negatively charged when it gains extra electrons.  If an atom loses electrons it becomes positively charged.  These atoms are referred IONS

- Electric Charge and Static Electricity  Charges that are the same repel each other. Charges that are different attract each other.

 All charged objects exert an electric force on each other  The electric force between two charges can be attractive or repulsive.

 Electric force between two charged objects depends on the distance between them and the amount of charge (THINK OF AS “MASS”) on each object. Electric force between two electric charges gets stronger as the charges get closer together. Electric force between two charged objects increases if the amount of charge on at least one of the objects increases.

 Charged objects don’t have to be touching to exert an electric force on each other.  Electric charges exert a force on each other at a distance through an electric field that exists around every electric charge.  Gets stronger as you get closer to a charge, just as the electric force between two charges becomes greater as the charges get closer together.

- Electric Charge and Static Electricity  An electric field is a region around a charged object where the object’s electric force is exerted on other charged objects.

- Electric Current  Electric current is the continuous flow of electric charges through a material.

 Electrons can be made to move from one atom to another.  When those electrons move between the atoms, a current of electricity is created.  Electric current- the flow of electric charge.

 Take a piece of wire.  The electrons are passed from atom to atom, creating an electrical current from one end to the other.  Electrons are very, very small.  A single copper penny contains more than 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (1x10 22 ) electrons.  Electricity "flows" or moves through some things better than others do. The measurement of how well something conducts electricity is called its resistance.

 As electrons flow through a circuit, they collide with the atoms and other electric charges in the materials that make up the circuit.  These collisions cause some of the electrons’ electrical energy to be converted into heat energy and sometimes into light.

- Electric Current  Two factors that affect the resistance:  diameter of the wire (the gauge)  length of the wire

 Scientists and engineers have learned many ways to move electrons off of atoms.  Leaving the atom with more protons  All atoms want to be balanced, the atom that has been "unbalanced" will look for a free electron to fill the place of the missing one.  Unbalanced atom has a "positive charge" (+) because it has too many protons. ION

 The free electron moves around waiting for an unbalanced atom to give it a home.  Free electron charge is negative, and has no proton to balance it out, so we say that it has a "negative charge" (-).  The electrons are passed from atom to atom, creating an electrical current from one end to other

 Energy cannot be created or destroyed, but it can be saved in various forms.  One way to store it is in the form of chemical energy in a battery.  When connected in a circuit, a battery can produce electricity.  Inside the battery, a reaction between the chemicals takes place. But reaction takes place only if there is a flow of electrons.

 INSULATOR--- A material in which electrons cannot move easily from place to place  Electrons are bound tightly in the atoms  Examples of insulators are plastic, wood, glass, and rubber.

 CONDUCTORS-- materials that contain electrons that can move more easily in the material.  When metal atoms form a solid, the metal atoms can move only short distances.  However, the electrons that are loosely bound to the atoms can move easily in the solid piece of metal.  The electric wire is made from a conductor coated with an insulator such as plastic.  The best conductors are metals such as copper, gold, and aluminum.