Benjamin Franklin performed his famous kite experiment in 1752.

Writer, statesman, scientist and a founding father of our nation, Benjamin Franklin is commonly credited with having “discovered” electricity. More accurately, Franklin deduced and then proved, by his famous kite experiment, that lightning is a form of electricity. Having observed similarities in the behavior of lightning and electricity, Franklin went out into a thunderstorm on this day in 1752 to fly a kite into the stormy clouds. To the top of the kite he had added an iron point, and to its string he had added a key. He predicted that the iron would draw the electricity from the clouds into the key. For a while, nothing happened. Then, Franklin saw the fibers on the string stand up, and placing his knuckle next to the key, he received a shock. Franklin continued to fly his kite in the storm, conducting several experiments designed to prove that lightning was indeed electrical. Franklin used his knowledge of the electrical nature of lightning to design lightning rods that safely conducted electricity from lightning into the ground, preventing property damage and injury.

Science NetLinks
Science NetLinks offers a series of four lessons on static electricity. In the first lesson, Static Electricity 1: Introducing Atoms (6–8), students review Web sites to learn about the atom’s basic structure and the positive and negative charges of its subparticles.

In Static Electricity 2: Introducing Static Electricity (6–8), students perform some simple experiments, creating static electricity to demonstrate how opposite charges attract each other and like charges repel each other.

In Static Electricity 3: More About Static Electricity (6–8), students explore a Web site to investigate concepts related to static electricity. Then, students perform experiments in which they create static electricity and demonstrate how opposite charges attract each other and like charges repel each other.

In Static Electricity 4: Static Electricity and Lightning (6–8), students explore a variety of Web sites to learn about lightning and then explain in their own words what causes lightning and how it is related to static electricity.

Most people know enough to move away from water in a lightning storm, but why don’t fish get zapped? The Science Update Zapping Fish (6–8) explores this question.

EconEdLink
In Deregulation and the California Utilities (9–12), students will look at the effects of deregulation of the utilities in California. Benjamin Franklin was a founding father, a scientist and he was notoriously frugal. How would he have viewed the economic debacle that resulted from the partial deregulation of the electricity industry in California?