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Introduction to bacteria

• Explore basic electricity relationships.
• Explain basic electricity relationships in series and parallel circuits.
• Use an ammeter and voltmeter to take readings in circuits.
• Provide reasoning to explain the measurements and relationships in circuits.
• Build circuits from schematic drawings.
• Determine if common objects are conductors or insulators.

You have learnt about static electricity where charged particles (electrons) can move from one object into another giving objects an overall charge. In this unit1 you will learn about current electricity. This is when a continuous flow of charge can be created using a circuit made of conducting wires and an energy source.

• Determine the variables that affect how charged bodies interact.
• Predict how charged bodies will interact.
• Describe the strength and direction of the electric field around a charged body.
• Use free-body diagrams and vector addition to help explain the interactions.

The flicker of numbers on a handheld calculator, nerve impulses carrying signals of vision to the brain, an ultrasound device sending a signal to a computer screen, the brain sending a message for a baby to twitch its toes, an electric train pulling into a station, a hydroelectric plant sending energy to metropolitan and rural users—these and many other examples of electricity involve electric current, which is the movement of charge. Humanity has harnessed electricity, the basis of this technology, to improve our quality of life. 

In this lesson you will learn that:

• Static electricity is a build-up of charge in an object.
• The build-up pf charge is caused by insulating materials rub against each other.
• The motion of these charges causes small shocks, lightening and sparks.
• These charges can be detected. 
• Certain materials can be classified as insulators, and others as conductors.
• Capacitors are small devices in circuits which can store charge.
• Lightning rods are used to allow charges from strikes to travel safely and dissipate in the Earth

Electric charge comes in two varieties, which we call positive and negative. Like charges repel each other, and unlike charges attract each other. Thus, two positive charges repel each other, as do two negative charges. A positive charge and a negative charge attract each other.

How do we know there are two types of electric charge? When various materials are rubbed together in controlled ways, certain combinations of materials always result in a net charge of one type on one material and a net charge of the opposite type on the other material. By convention, we call one type of charge positive and the other type negative.