Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Physical Science
Oak Meadow
Coursebook
Grade
Contents
Introduction:.................................................... ix
General Guidelines.............................................................x
A Note About Materials................................................... xi
Keep Your Work in a Safe Place....................................... xi
Final Note.......................................................................... xii
Lessons
Lesson 1: A Brief History of Physical Science ................ 1
The Flow of Discovery
Studying Science
Lesson 2: Measuring....................................................... 13
Taking Measurements
Measuring Systems
Converting Between U.S. Customary and Metric Systems
Measuring Linear Distance
Measuring Area
Measuring the Volume of Solids
Measuring the Volume of Liquids
iii
Contents
Lesson 4: Energy.............................................................. 39
Types of Energy
Potential Energy and Kinetic Energy
Energy Can Change Form
Used Energy and Heat Energy
Lesson 6: Force................................................................ 59
Different Kinds of Force
Force and Motion
Resultants
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Contents
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Contents
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Contents
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Grade 8
Scientific Method
Science describes what we know about our world. We learn about the
world by observing what is happening all around us. We observe through
all our senses: we watch, we listen, we feel, we smell, we taste, and we use
our intuition. Then we reach conclusions about what it all means. This is
how we make sense out of the world.
Observing and exploring nature and the workings of our earth is largely
a matter of being receptive to what lies all around us. This does not take
special training; look at any small child and youll see that he/she observes
many things that many of us dont notice. As we said in lesson 1, our
species has survived because we pay attention to novel events. Careful
observation is the basis of scientific inquiry.
In this lesson, you will learn about the classic scientific method. This
is an organized way of testing observed phenomena, useful in science
courses and in certain research applications. However, it is not the only
way that scientific progress is made! Scientists observe the world like
children do: exploring every corner, every new thing. It is observation and
questioning that is scientific inquiry, and this can come about in many
different ways. Sometimes you cannot create experiments around the
observed phenomena. If a shower of meteors falls to the earth, how can
you devise an experiment to test that they are meteors? You cant recreate
it, but you can observe carefully, and it can open your eyes to new
possibilities and new things to observe. This is the way science works.
We need to be constantly aware. In fact, most scientific discoveries happen
completely by surprise. However, even the surprises arent surprising,
because scientists expect them!
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Lesson 3
Scientific
Method
(continued)
We are all scientists. We ask questions, we guess what the answer will be,
we watch to see what happens. Our minds record the results and then we
decide what the results mean. We take this knowledge and use it throughout
our lives as we decide what to do and how to do it. In the scientific method,
observations are made about the world, and then experiments are
conducted to explain the observation. How the experiment is designed and
then conducted is important, because only then can we get an accurate
explanation for the observation. If the experiment is not controlled, then
it will not give us a reliable explanation. We will next look at the different
things which can make an experiment controlled or uncontrolled, and
therefore more or less reliable.
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Lesson 3
Scientific
Method
(continued)
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Lesson 3
Scientific
Method
(continued)
at other times. After you did the experiment, you dont know if it has to do
with placement in the freezer any more than you did before. The problem
was that there were too many variable factors in your original experiment.
This is an example of an uncontrolled experiment - there was not enough
control over the variables to find an explanation for the observation. If you
really want to find out what causes the ice cream to be harder or softer at
different times, you will need to limit the variables.
This brings us to an important rule about experiments: only one variable
factor allowed in each experiment! The only way you can figure out why
something is happening is to limit the variable factors to one. Each
experiment should only have one variable factor.
Limiting Variables
Scientists often simplify the world in order to study just one
or two things. This is known as limiting the variables. Think
of it like this: if you had an allergic reaction to something
that you ate one day, you would probably not be able, at
first, to figure out which food it was that gave you the allergic
reaction. Each food is a variable. The way to figure it out
would be to make a list of all the foods that you ate on that
day (a list of all the variables), and then each day eat only one
of them at a time. In this way you isolate each food (each
variable) until you figure out which one is making you react.
This is the process of limiting the variables.
How would this work with the ice cream hardness question? Lets redesign
the experiment to make all the factors constant except one; the variable
factor will be the placement of the ice cream in the freezer.
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Lesson 3
Scientific
Method
(continued)
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Lesson 3
Scientific
Method
(continued)
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Lesson 3
Scientific
Method
(continued)
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Lesson 3
Scientific
Method
(continued)
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Lesson 3
Scientific
Method
(continued)
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Lesson 3
Scientific
Method
(continued)
on the ocean? They are metal and quite dense, but they dont sink. Will clay
always sink, no matter what shape its in? There are many more questions
raised by this experiment than answers obtained! This is the way science works!
Your experiment is an important start. Information was learned, and now
further testing can be done. You see that you need to clarify your hypothesis
even more, perhaps adding that those objects that are more dense than
water will sink, and those less dense than water will float. But that still
raises the question about the ships that float. Uh-oh, maybe there is more
than one variable that determines whether an object will float! There could
be variables that you havent thought of yet.
Its important to remain inquisitive and keep questioning. You need to ask
yourself if your conclusion is always true. Consider all the variables youve
come up with, any experience you might have with any of them, and raise a
new question to test. You conclude that further experimentation is needed.
2. Now its your turn:
Ask yourself:
Is this always true?
Consider the variables
Observation: Light things float and heavy things sink. But some heavy
things, such as ships, also float. Why is that?
Now you design the rest of the experiment to test this. You can use clay
as your heavy object since it is easy to change the shape of. Write your
hypothesis and how you will conduct the experiment. Clearly state the
variables involved and how you will keep all but the shape constant. Do
the experiment, write your results, and form a conclusion based on your
hypothesis and results. Finally, write what other questions might come up,
and ideas you have on further testing the variables that affect whether an
object floats or sinks. Is there more than one variable involved, and might
they work together?
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Lesson 3
The Scientific Method you see is matter. What is matter? It is the stuff
1. Observation
all around you! Matter is anything with mass that
2. Hypothesis
3. Experiment
4. Results
5. Conclusion
Scientific
Method
(continued)
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Lesson 3
Scientific
Method
(continued)
Now that we have reviewed matter, and seen its different phases, lets
look more closely at the different substances that make up matter. Most
substances are made up of several other substances. Water is made up of
substances called hydrogen and oxygen. Salt is made up of sodium and
chlorine. Water can be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen; salt can
be broken down into chlorine and sodium. Hydrogen, oxygen, chlorine
and sodium are called elements. Elements are the building blocks of all
matter, and cannot be broken down further.
ELEMENTS
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Lesson 3
Scientific
Method
(continued)
Water molecule
Salt molecule
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Lesson 3
Notes
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Grade 8
Energy
Go outside and look around you. You can see and hear activity all around
you. The wind rustles the leaves on the trees. You feel the heat of the sun.
You see cars and bicycles move by. People are moving, talking, working
and playing. All of these things require energy for them to happen. We
use energy to keep ourselves alive. We use it to work and to make our
work easier. Energy runs all living things; energy runs us and our machines.
We live in a sea of energy; energy is all around us.
Energy is the capacity for movement and change. It produces changes in
matter. You get energy from the sun and from the food you eat that stores
the suns energy. In fact, most of the energy on earth comes from this one
source the sun. Your body uses energy every time it does anything. Energy
is needed to make anything move, even the smallest cell. And whenever
anything moves, energy is used.
Most of this course is about energy
and the different forms that it takes.
This lesson is an overview of the types
of energy that we will be studying in
more detail throughout the course.
Energy
Types of Energy
There are many different types of energy. All of them concern some type
of motion. Everything has at least one type of energy and many things
have several different types of energy. We will discuss some of the most
common ones in turn.
Thermal or heat energy is the energy in moving molecules. All things
contain some heat energy. Rub your hand on your arm and it will become
warm. Adding heat energy to anything makes its molecules move faster.
When you boil water, the water molecules move faster; they move so fast
39
Lesson 4
Energy
(continued)
that some molecules begin to leave the container as the water boils away
and evaporates. Heat can turn a solid into a liquid and a liquid into a gas.
With each of these transitions, the molecules are able to move about more
and more freely.
Light energy comes from the sun to Earth in the form of light waves. We
cannot see these waves, but they are very much like ocean waves. (We will
learn more about light waves in Lessons 16 and 17.) Light waves travel in a
straight direction which is described as a ray of light. Anything that gives
off light has light energy. Plants grow by using light energy. Photography is
an excellent example of the ability of light to cause change. Light can form
an image on photographic film by changing the state of the silver coating
on the film.
Electrons are one of the types of atomic particles we looked at in Lesson
3. Electrical energy is the energy that is in moving electrons. Light bulbs,
radios, and appliances use this type of energy. Electrical energy can turn
a motor, and it can transfer your ideas onto a magnetized tape in a tape
recorder or onto a magnetized disc in a computer. It can send your voice
thousands of miles through a telephone system. You will learn more about
electrical energy in future lessons.
Chemical energy is energy that is stored in chemicals. It is released in
chemical reactions or whenever two or more chemicals interact. Chemical
energy heats your home when you burn coal, wood, gas or oil. It is in batteries and changes to electrical energy when the battery is used. Chemical
energy is what your body runs on when you digest food.
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Lesson 4
Energy
Heat or Thermal
Mechanical or Motion
Light
Gravitational Electrical
Sound Chemical
Atomic
(continued)
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Lesson 4
Energy
(continued)
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and fall to the floor. We can say that the ball has gravitational potential
energy (which is actually a type of mechanical energy that you just read
about). Potential energy is stored energy. Energy does not have to show
itself in order to exist; it exists even when you cant see it.
Lesson 4
Energy
(continued)
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Lesson 4
Energy
(continued)
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Lesson 4
Energy
(continued)
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Lesson 4
Energy
(continued)
When energy is used, there is one thing that always happens: heat energy
is produced. No matter which type of energy is used, heat is produced. To
put it another way, whenever energy changes form, heat is produced. To
understand this, lets look at some examples.
Here is an example of used mechanical energy making heat. Have you ever
bent a thin piece of metal back and forth to break it in half? What happens
to the metal as you bend it back and forth? The mechanical energy that
you are supplying is transferred to the stress point, which becomes warm
until it snaps. (The snap is sound energy.) You can feel the heat from the
broken metal. The heat is slowly released into the air until the metal cools.
When electrical energy is used, it also releases heat. Electrical energy is
used to operate a CD player, stereo, television, or video tape player. If you
ever looked at the back of any of these appliances you would see a grill
covering a vent through which heat is released. When you buy a new
appliance and set it up, the instructions will tell you to place the appliance
away from the wall with enough room for the heat in the back to escape.
Heat is produced whenever you use electrical energy to operate one of
these appliances.
Using chemical energy also releases heat. If you are running, your muscles
use a lot of chemical energy through the food you eat to keep you moving.
The activity of running warms your body. You actually radiate much of this
heat out and away from you, warming the air around you (even though
you may not notice that youre doing this). As your body uses chemical
energy, heat is released. Have you ever been in a room with a lot of people
dancing or playing an active game? The room warms up with all of the
heat being given off from the moving bodies as they use chemical energy.
Whenever energy changes form, some of it is always changed into heat
energy and released. Scientists and engineers try very hard to minimize
this loss of heat because it is considered wasted energy. Imagine that
you like to eat ice cream, but you only like it when it is frozen. You cant
stand to eat melted ice cream, but every time you eat a bowl of frozen ice
cream some of it melts. Some of the ice cream is wasted because it changes
into a form that you wont eat. Has the wasted ice cream disappeared?
No, it has just changed into a form that is not useful to you.
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Lesson 4
Energy
(continued)
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Lesson 4
Notes
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Grade 8
23
Resistance and
Ohms Law
247
Lesson 23
Resistance and
Ohms Law
(continued)
The amount of resistance a wire has depends on four things: the length
of the wire, how thick it is, what it is made of, and its temperature. The
longer a wire is, the greater its resistance, as the electric current has to
pass through more media. The thinner the wire, the greater its resistance
as well, as it is harder for the electrical current to move along. As we have
seen, the composition of the wire (what it is made of), also determines
resistance. And the warmer a wire is, the greater its resistance.
Lets look at an analogy. Picture a large elevated tank of water. The height
of the tank determines the potential energy of the water, similar to the
electric potential (voltage) in a circuit. If we want to have water flow out
of the tank (current), we need to have a hose or pipe for it to flow through.
The amount of water flow we get depends a lot on the size of the hose,
as well as on the height of the tank. It is the same with electric current.
A higher voltage can allow a higher current. Also, a larger pipe has less
resistance, and a greater current can result. In this way, as we are about to
learn, the current depends on the voltage and the resistance of the material.
Now think about that light bulb again. As you learned in the last lesson, the
tungsten filament is surrounded by a special gas that keeps it from burning
up too quickly. Nevertheless, little by little the tungsten filament evaporates.
As this happens, the wire gets thinner and thinner. This causes the resistance
to be even greater. A greater resistance will cause more heating up, and the
hotter it gets, the more the resistance increases! Gradually, the filament
wears out. Have you noticed that a light bulb usually burns out right when
it is turned on? It glows really bright and then pow! A cool light bulb
has less resistance, which allows more current to flow. This is more than
the thin filament can take, and when it heats up, the resistance increases
until pow out it goes. All this happens in a second!
Superconductors
Some materials are called superconductors because they lose all of their
resistance at low temperatures. Mercury is a good conductor at ordinary
temperatures. It becomes a superconductor at 270 degrees below
zero Celsius. If scientists could find a way to make a superconductor
at normal temperatures, the cost of moving electricity from a power
plant to your house would decrease dramatically!
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Lesson 23
Resistance and
Ohms Law
2. Compare the thickness and the length of the cords for several
appliances in your house, including the cords for small appliances
such as table lamps and coffee maker, larger appliances like TVs
and microwaves, and big appliances such as refrigerators, freezers,
and air conditioning units. List the cords in order of thickness, from
thickest to thinnest, and note the length. Which appliances need the
most electricity to operate? How does the length and thickness of the
cord compare with the demand for electricity each appliance has?
(continued)
Ohms Law
Ohm:
The unit of measurement for resistance.
How is resistance measured? Remember, electric potential is measured in
units of volts (physicists use the symbol V for this). The amount of electric
current is measured in units of amperes (symbol I). Resistance is measured
in units of ohms (symbol R). The definition of an ohm is the resistance at
which one volt of electric potential allows one ampere of current to flow.
An example of an ohm value is a flashlight bulb. It has the resistance of
1 ohm, meaning that one ampere of current flows through it at one volt.
A 60-watt light bulb has the resistance of about 200 ohms.
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Lesson 23
Resistance and
Ohms Law
(continued)
Ohms Law:
Electromotive Force = Resistance x Electric current
The voltage, amperage (number of amperes) and resistance are related
to each other by a rule known as Ohms Law. Ohms Law states that the
current (I) in a circuit depends on the difference in electric potential
across the circuit (V), and the resistance of the material (R). Specifically,
Ohms Law states that the current in a circuit is equal to the voltage
difference divided by the resistance. This is how it looks:
Amperes (I) = Volts (V) Ohms (R)
We can use Ohms Law to calculate the current in a wire when the resistance and the voltage are known. By inverting the equation, we can also
find the voltage or the resistance if the other two elements are known.
Other ways of writing this equation are as follows:
V = I x R or R = V I
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Lesson 23
Resistance and
Ohms Law
(continued)
Ohms Law:
V=RxI
I=VR
R=VI
5. Assume your toaster has a resistance of 10 ohms, and it is plugged
into your house electricity of 120 volts. What is the current in the wire
when your toaster is plugged in and on? Show your calculation.
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Lesson 23
Resistance and
Ohms Law
(continued)
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Lesson 23
Next you attach the light bulb which has R = 1 ohm, and the fan which
has R =3 ohms. Again you use an ammeter to measure the current flowing
through the wire. Remember that no matter where you attach the ammeter,
the current will be the same. What would you expect the measurement of
the current to be? To calculate, you need to add up each resistor to find
the total resistance in the circuit.
Resistance and
Ohms Law
(continued)
I=VR
I = 6 volts 2 ohm (clock) + 1 ohm (light bulb) + 3 ohm (fan)
I = 6 volts 6 ohms
I = 1 ampere
The reason the current is lower when you put all three objects on the
circuit than when you only had the clock on the circuit is because of the
greater resistance in the circuit. According to the formula, if the voltage
stays the same, and the resistance increases, the current has to decrease!
So what about the voltage? As the electric current leaves the negative
terminal of the battery, it is at its greatest potential. The potential (voltage)
drops after each resistor, but the total voltage change is 6 volts. It is at
its lowest potential as it reaches the positive terminal of the battery. The
chemical activity in the battery then raises the moving charge back to a
high potential as it moves into the circuit again.
What would happen if we were to increase the voltage? Lets say we had
our three resistors, and a total resistance of 6 ohms. We want our current
to be higher than 1 ampere, so we have to increase the voltage of the circuit.
We switch to a 12 volt battery. In reality, we have to be careful that each
of our resistors can handle the increased voltage and current! Now our
formula looks like this:
I = 12 volts 6 ohms
I = 2 amperes
IN A SERIES CIRCUIT:
The voltage drops across each resistor in the circuit. The current
remains the same anywhere in the circuit. The individual resistances
add up to the total resistance of the circuit.
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Lesson 23
Resistance and
Ohms Law
(continued)
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Lesson 23
Can you see that this total resistance is less than the resistance of each of
the individual resistors? Compare the total resistance in the series circuit
to the total resistance in the parallel circuit.
Resistance and
Ohms Law
(continued)
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Lesson 23
Notes
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Grade 8
24 Home Electricity
Overload
Suppose that you are using a 150-watt light bulb in a bathroom that has
an electrical outlet on the same circuit. It is winter time and you are heating
the room with a 3600-watt space heater plugged into the outlet. You plug
your 1800-watt hair dryer into the outlet and begin to dry your hair and
all of a sudden everything turns off. You are left in the dark with a wet
head and cold feet. This is an example of what is called overload.
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Lesson 24
Home
Electricity
(continued)
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Lesson 24
Home
Electricity
(continued)
A circuit breaker is a similar type of safety device that is part of the electric
wiring of your house. Circuit breakers are located in a circuit breaker box
that is usually placed somewhere convenient in your house, such as on a
wall just inside an attached garage, also at the point where the main line
is divided up into different circuits. A circuit breaker works much the same
way as a fuse. A circuit breaker is a switch with a gap in it. Because of the
gap, no current flows through the switch under normal loads. The heat of
a large electrical overload (caused by too many appliances operating at
the same time) causes a bimetallic (two
metal) strip within the circuit breaker
to bend. When it bends, the metal strip
becomes disconnected from the circuit.
Electricity will arc, or jump, across the gap
and activate the switch which immediately
opens the circuit. When the metal strip
cools sufficiently to be safely connected,
the strip returns to its normal position.
While a fuse must be replaced if it is
blown, the circuit breaker only has to be
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Lesson 24
Home
Electricity
(continued)
reset and moved back into the on position after the overloading situation
has been located and corrected. You must manually push the circuit breaker
back to allow the electricity to flow again.
The difference between circuit breakers and fuses is that while a fuse has to
be replaced when it is blown, a circuit breaker continues to function over
and over again. A circuit breaker can also be manually switched to open a
circuit so that you can make electrical repairs without the danger of electricity
flowing through the circuit (and you!). Most homes nowadays are set up
with circuit breaker boxes instead of fuse boxes. Some individual appliances
might have their own fuse for additional protection for that appliance.
1. Locate the fuse box or circuit breaker box in your own home or
building. Ask your parents where it is located, and examine it closely.
a. Make a sketch which includes all the fuses or circuit breakers
in the box. Usually they will be labeled (such as Living Room
or Refrigerator or Central Air or Bedr oom). Copy these
labels. If the fuses or circuit breakers are numbered instead, there
is usu- ally a list nearby to tell you what number goes with what
room or section of your home.
b. On each fuse or circuit breaker there will be a number like 10, 15,
20 or 40. Make a note of this number . This is the number of
am- peres allowed for that circuit.
c. Add up the total amper es allowed for your house. This is the
total of all the circuits for your home.
d. What is the ampere limit for your bedroom circuit? For your
bathroom circuit?
e. Make a list of everything that is plugged into the outlets of one room
or section of your home (one circuit). Examine each item carefully
and determine how many amperes each item uses. Calculate
the amper es using the formula if necessary. Compare the total
amperes used with the total available amperes on that circuit.
If the wires in a circuit carry too much current, it is possible for the wires
in the circuit to build up an excess amount of heat. If the wires become hot
enough, the insulation around the wire can burn off and then the exposed
wire may ignite whatever is touching it. This is how electrical fires start.
Fuses and circuit breakers prevent dangerous overloading of a circuit by
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Oak Meadow
building in an intentional weak spot in the circuit. The weak spot is the
fuse or circuit breaker.
2. Now lets return to the question of why everything went off when
the light, a heater, and a hair dryer were all running in the bathroom
at the same time. After all, the light usually stays on just fine whenever
you use the bathroom. Why would it go off now? Answer this question
assuming the circuit breaker or fuse for the bathroom has a 40-ampere
capacity. Use the terms circuit, and overload. Then think of at
least two solutions to prevent this from happening again.
Lesson 24
Home
Electricity
(continued)
3. Assume that you have plugged into your bedroom outlets a 3600watt heater, a 300-watt tape recorder, and two 150-watt lamps.
You turn them all on and then you plug in a hair dryer (1600 watts)
and a vacuum cleaner (200 watts) and you dance around the room
vacuuming and drying your hair with your music blasting! Would you
blow the fuse or trip the circuit breaker to your bedroom or not?
Use the ampere rating for your room that you found in Assignment 1.
Calculate the total amperes used, showing your work.
Short Circuits
Sometimes you may find that a fuse or circuit breaker may blow even though
the flow of electric current does not exceed the fuse or circuit breaker rating
(the number of amperes that the circuit is designed to carry). This is usually
caused by a short circuit.
In order to understand short circuits you must remember that all wires going
into appliances are actually made up of two wires one wire to bring the
electricity into the appliance (into the resistor) and one to carry it back out.
Look closely at a wire on a small
appliance or lamp in your home.
You will see that it has a ditch down
the middle. This ditch is where the
insulator separates out the two
wires. In an electric circuit, electricity
always moves in a circle, from the
electric energy source through a
wire to a resistor (appliance) and
then back through the second wire
to the electrical source again.
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How much current is now flowing through the wire? Ohms Law states
that I = V R. Even though the current is not flowing through a resistor,
there is still some resistance in the wire. Lets say the resistance of the
circuit is now 1 ohm. The voltage of your house is 120 volts. 120/1 = 120
amperes of current flowing through the wire! Even if there was 2 ohms of
resistance still, the current would be 60 amps, enough to trip the circuit
breaker, opening the circuit.
Lesson 24
Home
Electricity
(continued)
Electric Shocks
Electrical current can cause shocks. It is current rather than voltage that
causes electrical shocks, although the voltage will help determine the amount
of shock because higher voltages allow higher current. When electrical
current takes a short path through a person, that person is in the middle
of a short circuit. Shocks commonly occur when a person touches a frayed
cord or other exposed electrical conductor. This is why it is important to
keep babies and children away from electrical outlets. The electrical current
will prefer to take a path through a person to the ground, rather than
around a circuit.
How much of a shock do you get? The flow of current
running through a persons body will depend upon
the applied voltage and the resistance of the persons
body. Ohms Law (I = V R) determines the amount
of electric shock someone is feeling.
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If your body is dry, it will have more resistance. Remember that water is a
very good conductor, and the human body is comprised mostly of water.
However, the outer skin has a lower percentage of water than does inner
tissue. When skin is dry, the resistance of the body is relatively high, and
the current coming from 10 volts may hardly be felt.
If the skin is wet, the bodys resistance drops about one thousand times!
Ten volts can give a strong shock and 120 volts may be fatal.
Many appliances are grounded. That means that a wire is connected from
the appliance to a ground. All the wiring in your house should also be
grounded with a ground. What a ground does is take excess electric current
to prevent it from going where it can cause danger. Many household cords
now have three wires running through them, one for the current going to
the resistor, another for the current going back to the energy source, and
a third to act as a ground should there be a short circuit. More and more
household outlets are now installed to take these three-pronged cords.
Every building also has a ground built into it as a safety device. Usually it is
either a wire or a pipe that leads from the house down into the ground (the
actual earth). The wire to the ground has less electrical resistance than a
persons body does. In the event of a short circuit, or if you touch a hot
wire, any current flowing through the appliance will take the path of least
resistance and flow through the appliance ground to the house ground wire
into the ground outside. This prevents a shock from going through you!
5. Weve all seen small birds sitting on power lines, and squirrels
running along them, and none of them get an electric shock.
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It seems the high voltage in the lines should kill them! Many large
birds, such as herons and raptors (hawks and eagles) are electrocuted
often by power lines. It is a big problem, and has reduced populations
of some rare birds. Do some research, and answer why power lines kill
large birds but do no harm to small birds that sit on them. Remember,
it is current, not voltage, that causes electric shock.
Lesson 24
Home
Electricity
(continued)
Electric Meters
Electric companies keep track
of how much electricity your
home uses, and use this
information to send your family
a bill to pay for the power you
used. In order to keep track of
your household use, the electric
company will install an electric
meter on the outside of your
home or building in a place
where it can easily be reached
in order to read it every billing
cycle, usually about once a month. Often the electric meter will be close
to where your circuit breaker or fuse box is located. It is usually covered
with a glass cover.
There are two types of meters. One is like the odometer of a car and you
just read the numbers. Some newer digital meters can be read from a
distance by the electric company, so the meter reader can read it while
driving down the road. Older meters have four or five circular dials lined
up in a row, each numbered 0 to 9. They are read in a special way.
The unit of measurement for the use of electricity is kilowatt hours.
On an electric meter, the number that shows is kilowatt hours. Electric
current is doing work every time you turn something on in your home.
That work is being supplied by the electric company. However, the time
it takes to do that work depends on the amount of power it takes to use
that appliance. Power is measured in watts. A kilowatt hour (kWh) is the
number of 1,000-watt units of power that is used in an hour. For example,
if you have a 100 watt light bulb burning for 10 hours, you have used
1000 watt-hours, or 1 kWh, of power.
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6. Locate the electric meter for your house. Write down the number it
shows and note the time and date. Come back in a day or two and
write the new number in your notebook and note the time. If it is an
older meter, it will have four or five circular dials lined up in a row,
each numbered 0 to 9. Begin reading at the far left dial. If a number
is between two numbers, record the lower number, and move onto
the next one to the right. If the dials pointer is exactly on a number,
check the next dial to the right if the pointer on the next dial has
passed 0, record the number indicated by the first pointer. If the next
pointer has not passed 0, record the next lower number on the first
dial. Read all the dials in this way, from left to right.
a. How many kilowatt hours did your family use in the amount of
time that passed between your readings? Divide that number by
the number of hours that passed between readings and write down
the average use per hour of your family. How many watts per hour
did your family use? (Hint: convert from kilowatts to watts.)
b. Now ask your parents for a copy of last month s electric bill. How
many kilowatt hours did your family use in the last billing cycle?
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