Electricity
With your partner, make a list.
1. How many electrical appliances do you have in your home?
2. What appliances do you have in the living room?
3. What appliances do you have in the kitchen?
4. What appliances do you have in the bedroom?
5. What appliances are your favorite?
Read the questions and use them to begin a conversation with your partner.
1. Have you (or has someone you know) ever had an electric shock?
2. What was life like before electricity was discovered?
3. How would your life be different without electricity?
4. What would you miss most in a world without electricity?
5. Do you think the car of the future will be electric? Why or why not?
Reading Comprehension
Electricity
Instructions: Read the text below to find the answers to the questions on your worksheet.
Count Alessandro Guiseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta was an Italian physicist who invented several
significant electrical instruments. He was born in 1745. His most famous invention was the “voltaic
pile” (electrochemical battery) which he invented in 1800, twenty-seven years before his death.
At approximately the same time, in Scotland, two engineers were working together to improve the
efficiency of steam engines. They were Matthew Boulton and James Watt. Watt was also an inventor
and, apart from having a unit of power named after him (a “watt”), also coined the term
“horsepower.”
Another contemporary was the German physicist, George Ohm (1789-1854), who established “Ohm’s
law” and had one of the measuring units used in electricy (the “ohm”) named after him.
Electromagnetic radiation, which is visible to the human eye, is called “light.” Before the invention of
electric light, people used either paraffin lamps or gas lighting. In 1870 two men, Swan and Edison,
both invented the electric light, although they were not working together and did not form a
partnership until 1883. Edison was American and Swan was British. It is thanks to these two pioneers
of electric light that the light bulb exists today. However, light bulbs have changed and developed
considerably since their invention. In the 1930s, fluorescent light was invented, largely replacing the
relatively inefficient older light bulbs, which wasted approximately ninety percent of the energy they
received, turning only about ten percent of it into light. Fluorescent light is considerably more
efficient at illuminating interior spaces and is therefore widely used in places such as offices.
Quick Quiz
1. Electromagnetic radiation is called
, which is visible to the human eye.
2. The American inventor who invented electric light is named
3. The German physicist who established “Ohm’s Law” is named
4. James
.
.
, the Scottish engineer and inventor.
5. Before electric light, people used
lamps or gas
.
QUIZLET: Electric Appliances (Study online at quizlet.com/_w3a8
1. La aspiradora
vacuum cleaner
2. El despertador
alarm clock
3. El horno
oven
4. El horno (microondas)
microwave oven
5. La lavadora
the washing machine
6. El lavaplatos
dishwasher
7. La nevera
refrigerator
8. La plancha
iron
9. El refrigerador
refrigerator
10. La secadora
clothes dryer
11. La stufa
stove
12. La tostadora
toaster