This animated essay from the American Experience Web site explains the difference between alternating and direct electric current and offers in-depth explanations about the role played by a battery, light bulb, wire, and generator. Grades 6-12.

This project allows students to apply concepts of momentum conservation and energy conservation from classical physics. However, here they are not enough: they must be combined with modern physics, using concepts from relativity and particle physics as well as modern units that put energy, mass, and momentum in terms of MeV and GeV. Most important, students will learn about both fundamental and cutting-edge physics by actually doing what physicists do.

This Freshman Advising Seminar surveys the many applications of magnets and magnetism. To the Chinese and Greeks of ancient times, the attractive and repulsive forces between magnets must have seemed magical indeed. Through the ages, miraculous curative powers have been attributed to magnets, and magnets have been used by illusionists to produce "magical" effects. Magnets guided ships in the Age of Exploration and generated the electrical industry in the 19th century. Today they store information and entertainment on disks and tapes, and produce sound in speakers, images on TV screens, rotation in motors, and levitation in high-speed trains. Students visit various MIT projects related to magnets (including superconducting electromagnets) and read about and discuss the history, legends, pseudoscience, science, and technology of types of magnets, including applications in medicine. Several short written reports and at least one oral presentation will be required of each participant.

This part of the Student Observation Network allows you to make observations to answer the question, "Have auroras been seen within the last 24 hours due to a solar storm?"

The Student Observation Network provides guided inquiry. While participating in the Auroral Friends program your students may think of other questions that they wish to investigate. For instance, they may wish to know; "What causes the aurora?", "What affect does a solar storm have on aurora?", and "What conditions enhance auroras?". These open inquiries may reveal to them that coronal holes may energize auroras even when solar storms have not occurred.

Earth's Magnetic Personality is the fourth and final teacher's guide in a sequence of four guides designed to understand magnetometer data and the THEMIS mission science while meeting the needs of high school teachers teaching astronomy, physics, and physical science. It was developed with the goal that students can work directly with the THEMIS magnetometer data. The guide covers vectors, the x-y-z magnetometer plots, creating a prediction for aurora using the magnetometer data, calculating the total magnetic field strength and observing it over months, and the waves in Earth's magnetic field excited by large magnetic storms.

This magnetism teacher’s guide is one of four activity guides—plus a background guide for teachers—that provide students with the opportunity to build on science concepts related to Earth’s magnetism and its changes, as detected by THEMIS magnetometers located in schools across the U.S. The four activity guides have been used in different types of classes, from physical science and physics classes, to geology classes and astronomy classes. The excitement of actually participating in the THEMIS project helps motivate the students to learn challenging physical science concepts.

The background guide for teachers, the THEMIS GEONS Users Guide describes the important role that terrestrial magnetism plays in shaping a number of important Earth systems. It also explains the basic operating principles behind magnetometers—particularly the system you are now in the process of using to investigate magnetic storms at your school.

Earth’s Magnetic Personality is the fourth and final guide, which was developed with the goal that students can work directly with the THEMIS magnetometer data. The guide covers vectors, the x-y-z magnetometer plots, creating a prediction for aurora using the magnetometer data, calculating the total magnetic field strength and observing it over months, and the waves in Earth’s magnetic field excited by large magnetic storms.

This module will introduce you to many of the basic concepts involved with Electricity and Magnetism. We will introduce you to static charge, moving charge, voltage, resistance, and current. We will learn about the properties of magnets and how magnets are used to produce electric current.

Students will test their knowledge of electricity and magnetism. Solutions are given to questions so students will be able to improve their knowledge of the material.

Introduction to electromagnetism and electrostatics: electric charge, Coulomb's law, electric structure of matter; conductors and dielectrics. Concepts of electrostatic field and potential, electrostatic energy. Electric currents, magnetic fields and Ampere's law. Magnetic materials. Time-varying fields and Faraday's law of induction. Basic electric circuits. Electromagnetic waves and Maxwell's equations. Subject taught using the TEAL (Technology Enabled Active Learning) format which utilizes small group interaction and current technology. The TEAL/Studio Project at MIT is a new approach to physics education designed to help students develop much better intuition about, and conceptual models of, physical phenomena.

Electrical, optical, magnetic, and mechanical properties of metals, semiconductors, ceramics and polymers. Discussion of roles of bonding, structure (crystalline, defect, energy band and microstructure) and composition in influencing and controlling physical properties. Case studies drawn from a variety of applications including semiconductor diodes, optical detectors, sensors, thin films, biomaterials, composites, and cellular materials.

Students use a Although atoms contain both negatively and positively charged particles, they do so in equal amounts and carry no net charge. This balance can be temporarily disrupted by rubbing one material against another. One device, known as a Van de Graaff generator, uses a fast moving rubber belt to charge a metallic dome to nearly 200,000 Volts. This activity uses a Van de Graaff generator to study the behavior of electrical charges.

Play with a bar magnet and coils to learn about Faraday's law. Move a bar magnet near one or two coils to make a light bulb glow. View the magnetic field lines. A meter shows the direction and magnitude of the current. View the magnetic field lines or use a meter to show the direction and magnitude of the current. You can also play with electromagnets, generators and transformers!

Light a light bulb by waving a magnet. This demonstration of Faraday's Law shows you how to reduce your power bill at the expense of your grocery bill.

This course focuses on the fundamentals of structure, energetics, and bonding that underpin materials science. It is the introductory lecture class for sophomore students in Materials Science and Engineering, taken with 3.014 and 3.016 to create a unified introduction to the subject. Topics include: an introduction to thermodynamic functions and laws governing equilibrium properties, relating macroscopic behavior to atomistic and molecular models of materials; the role of electronic bonding in determining the energy, structure, and stability of materials; quantum mechanical descriptions of interacting electrons and atoms; materials phenomena, such as heat capacities, phase transformations, and multiphase equilibria to chemical reactions and magnetism; symmetry properties of molecules and solids; structure of complex, disordered, and amorphous materials; tensors and constraints on physical properties imposed by symmetry; and determination of structure through diffraction. Real-world applications include engineered alloys, electronic and magnetic materials, ionic and network solids, polymers, and biomaterials.

This is a continuation of Fundamentals of Physics, I (PHYS 200), the introductory course on the principles and methods of physics for students who have good preparation in physics and mathematics. This course covers electricity, magnetism, optics and quantum mechanics.

This course is the second of a two-part introductory, calculus based, general physics course intended for non-physics majors. The course is designated to train you in a wide variety of problem-solving skills that you will be able to transfer far beyond this physics course. Doing well in this course does not require you to be a “genius”, but you will have to think about the physical concepts in order to understand them and you will have to apply these ideas in order to solve computational problems. To accomplish the former, all you really need is your brain (in good working order) and the willingness to use it. To accomplish the latter, you will need some mathematical skills. These are reviewed in Appendices A and B, located in the back of the course text.

Generate electricity with a bar magnet! Discover the physics behind the phenomena by exploring magnets and how you can use them to make a bulb light.

This site provides a non-mathematical introduction to the magnetism of the Earth, the Sun, the planets and their environments, following a historical thread. In 1600, four hundred years ago William Gilbert, later physician to Queen Elizabeth I of England, published his great study of magnetism, "De Magnete"--"On the Magnet". It gave the first rational explanation to the mysterious ability of the compass needle to point north-south: the Earth itself was magnetic. "De Magnete" opened the era of modern physics and astronomy and started a century marked by the great achievements of Galileo, Kepler, Newton and others. This web site tells the story of Gilbert and his book--with glimpses of London in 1600, and with studies of magnetism before Gilbert. It then recounts the later history of the Earth's magnetism, including the remarkable discoveries of Halley, Coulomb, Oersted, Ampere and Gauss; the unexpected connection between sunspot activity and the Earth's magnetism; the deep-seated "'dynamo" believed to be responsible for the field; the strange reversals of the Earth's magnetic polarity; the role of magnetism in discovering the "drift" of continents; the extension of magnetism to space around Earth, even to other planets.

This activity is a guided demonstration where students create light up quiz boards to demonstrate electricity vocabulary.