I found some good info with cool diagrams on howstuffworks.com for Jessica’s science lessons. So far I’ve made .pdfs of two pages – How Batteries Work and How Electricity Works. I’ve emailed them to her for her to save, print and read.
When she’s read these we’ll be doing some experiments. I also found a page about lemon power which I think is fascinating and I want to try that too.
AHA! How electricity works? I bet you haven’t figured out yet how they separate the different-coloured electrons for services like traffic lights, yet! (-:
Oh, also…
The top lead on a two-wire system is more typically the ground, as that’s the one that will cop it from lightning strikes most often. The picture shows a system with “active” on top.
You’ll also see three-phase poles set up with three wires in a row or triangle, plus one much higher which is ground. This gets really obvious on the huge poles, as the ground lead is the only one without a metre or two of ceramic insulators between it & the supporting beam.