Investigating Electricity

Science is an important topic in our urban world as we are surrounded by technology based on the ways that physics, chemistry, biology and all other sciences work. Textbooks are necessary, of course, as are other books that cover the same topics in different ways. The “Investigating Science Challenges” series of books wisely limits itself to the area of physics, what most people think of as science, presenting the material with the key information in small pieces and lots of pictures. Each book has three “Let’s Investigate” sections, an experiment related to the topic using easily available materials and demonstrating a concept given in the text.

Richard Spilsbury has taken on a series of concepts that most people struggle with and has presented them clearly and briefly. He has successfully included both interesting real world facts and definitions on many of the pages and also includes related and exciting photographs. It is great to see a wide variety of young people showing how to do the experiments and illustrating the points of the text. Some of the people appear in more than one book giving more sense of continuity.

It is encouraging that, in addition to the glossary, references and index, there are tips for doing the experiments included at the back of the book. Once readers have used one of the books, they will know what to expect in the others.

Electricity makes almost everything around us work from lights to heat, fans to phones and computers to televisions. This is also one of the concepts that most confuses the average person as it happens at a molecular level and is completely invisible and in the background even though we are surrounded by it at all times.

Investigating Electricity admirably covers all of the main topics relating to electricity, starting with what it is and how it is created in atoms and static charge, then how it flows through conductors and not through insulators. After circuits, the text covers heat, light and sound. The experiments are about static electricity, making a circuit and making an earphone that can be used with an MP3 player (the last one requires the help of an adult).

This is a large amount of information to be included in a 32-page book. Each of the terms given in the book is used properly and defined well; however, there is so much material that it is really packed in. It helps greatly that the information is broken up into smaller pieces and interspersed with related facts and pictures such as the one about lightning or the great picture of turquoise insulators on thick wires connected to a pole. It is marvelous that the ‘Investigate More’ section at the end covers conserving energy and making electricity from renewable resources.

Investigating Electricity does a credible job of presenting a very complex and hard to understand topic in an interesting and comprehensible manner. A reader will still have to work to reach full understanding although this book is a good addition to a textbook on the subject.

The “Investigating Science Challenges” seems to be designed to fill specific curriculum requirements in both science and in research methods. If this is the case, the series is a success as it contains numerous ways to draw students into the topics and experiments that are easy enough for young people to perform while getting a more practical understanding of how science works. A budding scientist or engineer will be particularly attracted to these ideas and to the method of presentation.