Electricity travels at the speed of light - more than 186,000 miles per second! A spark of static electricity can measure up to three thousand (3,000) volts. A bolt of lightning can measure up to three million (3,000,000) volts, and it lasts less than one second! Electricity always tries to find the easiest path to the ground. Electricity can be made from wind, water, the sun and even animal poop. A 600 megawatt natural gas plant can power 220,000 homes. The first power plant - owned by Thomas Edison - opened in New York City in 1882. Thomas Edison invented more than 2,000 new products, including almost everything needed for us to use electricity in our homes: switches, fuses, sockets and meters. Benjamin Franklin didn't discover electricity, but he did prove that lightning is a form of electrical energy.

Energy is invisible yet it’s all around us and throughout the universe.  We use it every day, we have it in our bodies and some of it comes from other planets!  Energy can never be made or destroyed, but its form can be converted and changed.  For example, the chemical energy we get from our food turns into kinetic and thermal energy (see below) when we walk and sound energy when we shout. Here’s a great  video  by scientists showing the many ways that energy can be transferred and converted.

Never play with electricity. So if you have children under the age of 5

use plastic plug sockets.