Electricity Q&A's

1. How does something become charged? What is an Ion?

To charge something you must rub an object against another. For example, if you take a rubber rod and rub it against hair then the rod acquires a negative charge. When you take a plastic rod and rub silk on it acquires a positive charge. An Ion is a positive charged atom.

2. How is an atom arranged?

Neutrons and Protons are in the middle and on the outside are electrons floating around

3. What does it mean for something to become polarized?

When something is that when an neutral item the positive goes on one side and electrons go to another.

4. What is an insulator,and conductor?

Insulators cannot have electrons travel through it and conductors can have electrons travel through it.

5. What does it mean for two items to be electrically attracted?

It means that two objects of opposite charges attract. When you have a ball that has negative charge and a another with a positive charge they attract because the negative charge pulls the positive closer to it.

6. Why does a negatively charged balloon pick up electrically neutral pieces of paper?

The balloon polarizes the neutral paper

7. What is an electric field? (answer in paragraph form)
a. What is the purpose of a positive test charge in an electric field?

An electrical field is the space around the charge when another charge is in the field forces act upon it. the length between the charges is inversely proportional to its strength. The further it charges from the other the less the electrical field is. An electrical field is similar to gravity in the sense that the further you are from the earth the less you are affected by the gravitational field.

8. In you own words explain how electric potential is measured and what it is.

Electric potential is the potential energy built up divided by the charge. Electric potential energy is built up when you exert force onto a positive against a positive or a negative against a negative.

Electricity Learning

Paul demonstrated electricity with the Van De Graff by using many examples like napkins, bubbles, paper strips, human chain, and Cheerios. When Paul blew bubbles toward the Van De Graff the bubbles repelled because I think the bubbles and the Van De Graff had the same charge so they repelled. We made a human chain that had two people holding the Van De Graff on both sides while touching other people to create a chain around. When the human chain was created Paul went around touching our backs causing us to get shocked because either Paul had a different charge then all of us that made us get shocked. Paul put a napkin on the Van De Graff and the napkin flew away from the Van De Graff because the napkin and the Van De Graff had the same charge,but when Paul put more napkins they didn't fly away because it takes more time for napkins to repel from the Van De Graff. Then Paul put paper strips onto the Van De Graff and they lifted up meaning that they repelled from it because of the same charge.
Last Paul put Cheerios on the Van De Graff and they repelled away because of its charge was the same as the Van De Graff.

Electricity Lesson

Today we learned about static electricity and how it is connected to magnetism. Electricity has repel and attract elements exactly like magnetism. We went to three different stations to study electricity. Similar to magnetism, I learned that electricity can make two objects attract by having opposite polarity, and two objects can repel by having the same polarity.
At station number one, I took a balloon and rubbed it against my hair, after I held the balloon over 10 scraps of paper. I observed that the paper was attracted to the balloon due to static electricity built up by my hair.
At station number two, I took two 10-inch pieces of tape and taped them perpendicularly with half of the second piece hanging off the table. After, I pulled them both off of the table and held them next to each other. The two pieces of tape were attracted to each other due to opposite polarity created when taping them perpendicular to each other.
At station number three, I took two 10-inch pieces of tape and taped them parallel to each other on the table. After waiting for two minutes I pulled the two pieces of tape off the table and held them next to each other. I observed that the two pieces of tape repelled from each other due to having the same polarity.