Here you can find what you need to scientifically assess battery performance. In this exercise (that should take about one week) learn how batteries work, how they wear out and most importantly, how to make valid measurements to assess...

Batteries are expensive to purchase in a store, but you can make one your self for exactly 24 cents. In this experiment, you will make your own voltaic pile using pennies and nickels and determine how many coins in a pile will make the...

Shake N' Light flashlights have been advertised on televisions across the nation in the recent year. But many do not understand just how they get energy to light up the bulb without using batteries. Do this experiment to make your own...

An article that discusses the coupling of an electric field with a magnetic field to create electromagnetic waves. Article also discusses how different types of electromagnetic waves have different wavelengths which forms the...

The World Health Organization probes into the feared associations between electromagnetic fields (EMFs) and cancer. Check out "What is EMF?" for detailed summaries on what electromagnetic fields are and the possible health effects, or...

In the modern world, virtually everyone is familiar with electricity as an accessible, essential form of energy. In electricity's earlier days, scientists used the buildup and release of static electricity.

Although he is best known as one of the greatest mathematicians of all time, Carl Friedrich Gauss was also a pioneer in the study of magnetism and electricity. To facilitate an extensive survey of terrestrial magnetism, he invented an...

The Scottish instrument maker and inventor James Watt had a tremendous impact on the shape of modern society. His improvements to the steam engine were a significant factor in the Industrial Revolution, and when the Watt engine was...

William Thomson, known as Lord Kelvin, was one of the most eminent scientists of the nineteenth century and is best known today for inventing the international system of absolute temperature that bears his name. He made contributions to...

Awarded more than 100 patents over the course of his lifetime, Nikola Tesla was a man of considerable genius and vision. He was reportedly born at exactly midnight during an electrical storm, an intriguing beginning for a man who would...

In the 17th century, German scientist Otto von Guericke built and carried out experiments with a sulfur globe that produced static electricity.

Claude Shannon was a mathematician and electrical engineer whose work underlies modern information theory and helped instigate the digital revolution. He was the first person to recognize how Boolean algebra could be used to great...

Physicist Felix Bloch developed a non-destructive technique for precisely observing and measuring the magnetic properties of nuclear particles. He called his technique "nuclear induction," but nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) soon became...

Chemist Paul Lauterbur pioneered the use of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) for medical imaging. He developed a technique, now known as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), in the early 1970s that involves the introduction of gradients in...

[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] Explores what makes a material magnetic, ferromagnetic materials and how they can be magnetised, temporary and permanent magnets, and the mineral magnetite.

[Free Registration/Login Required] Learn how magnetic forces acting on current-carrying wires can be used to drive an electric motor using this interactive simulation. A PDF worksheet and a video tutorial are also available. [2:47]

No fancy movement in this tutorial, but these rules come in very handy when trying to understand some of what's going on in our other tutorials.

Learners explore electrification in the 20th century. Some topics investigated are rural electrification, power generators, and direct current (DC). The resource consists of historical information, a timeline, and a personal essay by a...

[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] This lesson examines how moving electric charges are affected when inside a magnetic field. Students are shown how to calculate the force on a single moving electric...

Use this site to learn about the inventor of the electro-magnetic motor, Nikola Tesla. Find out why Tesla's experimentation with alternating current was so important to later inventions and use of electricity.

Students will explore how magnets can create a current by making their own headphones and listening to music from their iPods.

NASA provides a nice blending of the achievements of three scientists, Oersted, Ampere, and Maxwell. This done by NASA-sponsored International Solar-Terrestrial Physics group. Lots of pictures, diagrams, and scientific explanation. Good...

This activity introduces students to the concepts of electrical current and open and closed circuits. Students will act out open and closed circuits as a whole class with some students acting as the "motors" or "light bulbs."

This site offers a wealth of online textbook-related materials that encourage the discovery of science in the world around us. Enter the site to access material on specific topics. Each section contains reading material (complete with...