Flow of Charge/Potential Difference

Today we begin our last unit: Electricity! We know that electricity is made of moving electrons, but what makes them move? It turns out all you need is a potential difference (voltage difference). When you don't have a potential difference, no charges flow and therefore there is no electricity. Watch this video of some kids touching an electric fence; until the last dude, all of those kids were at the same potential, insulated from a different potential (ground), so there was no electricity flowing through them.

Homework tonight is Electricity I - due tomorrow.

Study Guide Answers

Below you will find the abridged answers to the electrostatics study guide as well as a couple of problems we did together for bellwork.

Faraday Cages and Electrostatics Study Guide

Today we talked briefly about Faraday cages and why a car is a pretty good place to be during a lightning storm. We also watched a Top Gear video with a car being hit by lightning.


After that we counted and recorded your stamps from 2/6 until 3/24. Finally, we started work on your study guide. Thursday will be a work day and your test is on Friday.

Voltage and Electrical Potential Energy

First we compared gravitational potential energy to a new quantity, electrical potential energy.

Then we took some notes about electric potential, also known as voltage.

Your homework is Voltage.

Water Main Break

The water main broke sometime this morning, so we are releasing from school early. Period 1 got a lesson done today, but no one else, so today's lesson will just be Monday. Period 1 will probably go over Coulomb's Law on Monday since most of the class was gone last Tuesday.

Teacher Sick

I am home today, so you have a reading. There are two different readings, but you are only required to do one. If you do both you get extra credit.

Reading #1
Reading #2

Coulomb's Law

Today we derived Coulomb's Law by using an online simulation to collect data. Here is the lab:

Coulomb's Law Virtual Lab

We talked about the results of your lab to bring them together into Coulomb's Law, which we wrote on the board along with the bellwork from the beginning of class. It ended up being a little messy, but Coulomb's Law is in the top right corner area.

 Your homework is Concept-Development 32-1.