On Friday, we started learning about atoms and electricity. Many people were trying to figure out why amber would attract light things like feathers. Many people had different theories. Mr. Calvert had us each get a PVC pipe and a piece of cloth for an experiment. Then he gave each table a glass jar that was closed and a metal wire going from inside the jar through the cap out of the jar. At the end of the wire there was a piece of tinfoil. When you rubbed the PVC pipe on the piece of cloth and moved it near the jar, the piece of tinfoil would move with your pipe.

An atom has protons and neutrons which are in the nucleus, and the electrons are outside of the nucleus. Protons are a positive charge, neutrons are a neutral charge, and electrons are a negative charge.

You start with a grapefruit sized ball. In order to see the atoms inside the grapefruit, you would have to make the size of the grapefruit as big as the earth, and the atoms would be only as big as a blueberry. And to see the nucleus the size of a marble, the blueberry would have to be the size of a professional football stadium. The electrons are outside as big as little fruit flies, zapping around in little flashes of light, almost teleporting.

Protons repel each other, but the neutrons stay between the protons.

The amount of neutrons in an atom may only change how light or weak the atom is, but the number of protons an atom contains changes the whole type of atom.

Lightning works by having the negative charge on the bottom of the lightning cloud, and the positive charge are on the top of the cloud. The electrons below the cloud move away from the cloud because electrons don’t like being next to each other. Then