Minnesota Power and NTC invite you to use these e-learning resources to teach your students about electrical safety. The digital materials below are designed to get your students excited about understanding this important subject.
Want to know the best way to use the related videos, games, smart speaker activity and other lessons to educate your class? Watch this short video and learn how to add Space Station Safety to your curriculum.
We know your class time is extremely valuable. That’s why we ensure that all of our digital e-learning materials are aligned with state and national educational standards. It’s important that the Space Station Safety digital program adds to your existing curriculum and keeps students on track with their ongoing learning.
See below for details about how each digital activity aligns with educational standards and corresponds with your state’s curricula.
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This 35-minute electrical safety program is for grades K-5. Through entertaining sketches featuring a variety of characters, Space Station Safety teaches the following educational points:
Laughing while learning, your students will experience important lessons about electricity and electrical safety.
Your students can enhance what they learn from the program with these fun, hands-on lessons and experiments. These lessons can be done in the classroom or easily adapted for students to do at home with their families.
They’re a fun and educational way for students to learn with family members. The materials needed for these lessons are basic supplies that most people have at home. Follow up with your students to make sure they enjoyed and learned from these activities.
Lesson 1:
An energy ball is a hollow ball that contains a light and a sound device, both of which are attached by wires in series to two metal electrodes that are attached to the outside of the ball (as shown in the diagram below). When both electrodes are touched by one person or by several people in contact with each other, the circuit is closed and the ball lights up and makes a noise. An energy ball can be purchased from most science supply stores.
OBJECTIVE
Students will be able to define insulator and conductor and will classify objects as insulators and conductors.
PURPOSE OF ACTIVITYReview, Identify Details, Apply Skills, Define
COGNITIVE LEVELStrategic Thinking, Extended Thinking, Skills and Concepts
CLASS TIME30 minutes
MATERIALSLesson 2:
An energy ball is a hollow ball that contains a light and a sound device, both of which are attached by wires in series to two metal electrodes that are attached to the outside of the ball (as shown in the diagram below). When both electrodes are touched by one person or by several people in contact with each other, the circuit is closed and the ball lights up and makes a noise. An energy ball can be purchased from most science supply stores.
OBJECTIVE
Students will be able to distinguish between open and closed circuits and explain that electricity is a form of energy.
PURPOSE OF ACTIVITYReview, Identify Details, Apply Skills, Define
COGNITIVE LEVELStrategic Thinking, Extended Thinking, Skills and Concepts
CLASS TIME30 minutes
MATERIALSFollow-up, formative assessments for you to gauge the learning of your students are especially important with e-learning. Below are some suggestions for how you can assess your students’ performance quickly and effectively.
These assessments are easy for you and your students to complete and help ensure your class is getting the maximum educational value, retention and engagement from the related digital activities.
The Space Station Safety student activities page features games, videos, educational lessons, downloadable PDFs, a smart speaker app and more. Access in the classroom or at home to learn more about electrical safety and have fun exploring Space Station Safety!
This downloadable PDF features colorful artwork, entertaining games and activities, and expanded information to complete your understanding of electrical safety. Read on your own, with your class or with friends and family and get to know the characters of Space Station Safety.
Dive into this colorful, illustrated e-book in the classroom or at home with friends and family. Students can read to themselves or with others, and younger students can use the read-along option.
Flip through this colorful graphic novel for a new and engaging story. With fun artwork, entertaining characters and expanded information, the Agents of Safety graphic novel offers a page-turning experience.
We take your feedback and suggestions very seriously. Hearing from educators with firsthand experience with our programs ensures that we continue to improve our digital resources, making them as beneficial as possible for you and your students.
Please complete this brief, two-minute evaluation to let us know what you thought. Enter the code you received on the Teacher Instruction Card or call us for your access code.
Thank you for your time and valuable input.
You’ve covered the basics of electrical safety. If you really want to dig deep with your class, check out the expanded information and additional resources below.
These materials provide even more insight into the history, science, usage and importance of electricity. There are also helpful links and tips for staying safe around electricity in your community.
Born in 1791 to a poor family in England, Michael Faraday was extremely curious, questioning everything. He felt an urgent need to know more. At age 13, he became an errand boy for a bookbinding shop in London. He read every book that he bound, and decided that one day he would write a book of his own. He became interested in the concept of energy, specifically force. Because of his early reading and experiments with the idea of force, he was able to make important discoveries in electricity later in life. He eventually became a famous chemist and physicist.
Faraday built two devices to produce what he called electromagnetic rotation: a continuous circular motion from the magnetic force around a wire. Ten years later, in 1831, he began his great series of experiments in which he discovered electromagnetic induction. These experiments form the basis of modern electromagnetic technology.
In 1831, using his "induction ring," Faraday made one of his greatest discoveries – electromagnetic induction, or the generation of electricity in a wire by means of the electromagnetic effect of a current in another wire. The induction ring was the first electric transformer. In a second series of experiments in September 1831, he discovered magneto-electric induction: the production of a steady electric current. To do this, Faraday attached two wires through a sliding contact to a copper disc. By rotating the disc between the poles of a horseshoe magnet he obtained a continuous direct current. This was the first generator. From his experiments came devices that led to the modern electric motor, generator and transformer.Faraday continued his electrical experiments. In “In 1832 he proved that static electricity, voltaic electricity produced by a battery, and the electricity induced from a magnet were all the same. He also did significant work in electrochemistry, stating the First and Second Laws of Electrolysis. This laid the basis for electrochemistry, another great modern industry.
Michael Faraday, one of the world's greatest experimental physicists, is known as the father of the electric motor, electric generator, electric transformer and electrolysis. He wrote the "Law of Induction" and is known for the "Faraday Effect."
Source: https://www.eia.gov/kids/history-of-energy/famous-people/faraday.php
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