New physics teaching resource sites continue to pop up every day, and this one from the University of Minnesota's Physics Education Research Group is a good find. The site is divided into two areas, one covering mechanics problems, and the other covering electricity and magnetic problems. Within these two areas, visitors can look through examples of linear kinematics problems, force problems,...

This Topic In Depth explores some of what the Web has to offer on the subject of electricity. The first site from Thinkquest.org called Electricity Online (1) gives an excellent overview, with topics ranging from circuits and transformers to electricity's discovery and history. The site even contains games, activities, and quizzes. The second site, Edison's Miracle of Light (2) from PBS.org, is...

William J. Beaty, an Electrical Engineer at the University of Washington, has posted this website about electricity. He offers a simple answer to the question, What Is "Electricity?," identifies twenty misconceptions he has found to be barriers to understanding electricity, and then proceeds to explain various aspects of electricity. Beaty's debunking articles address common misconceptions about...

For most of us, what leaves our bodies in terms of waste holds no desirable potential return. But, NASA scientists are finding that waste may not need to be wasted whatsoever. In fact, they are finding that with the help of a relatively newly-discovered bacterium, human waste may be used to generate electricity. The first site, from NASA, provides a very detailed release of the story regarding...

This fine course is offered as a welcome addition to MIT's OpenCourseWare initiative. The materials from this version of "Introduction to Electric Power Systems" are from the iteration taught by Professor James Kirtley in Spring 2011. On the site, visitors can look over the syllabus, the course calendar, readings, assignments, and quizzes. The topics covered here include load flow, power electric...

Six massive volumes comprise this comprehensive online reference of electric circuits. The first three volumes cover analog circuits, including direct current, alternating current, and semiconductors. Digital systems are the topic of the fourth volume, and a quick reference guide to frequently used equations and practices constitutes the fifth. Each volume can be downloaded as a single file for...

The Optical Microscopy Division of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (NHMFL) provides these state of the art Electricity & Magnetism Tutorials (For more from NHMFL, see the August 4, 1999 Scout Report for Science & Engineering). The wide variety of interactive tutorials (Java) includes topics like Atomic Orbitals, Cathode Rays, Faraday's Electromagnetic Induction Experiment, Lenz's Law,...

Tampa Electric (1) offers animated illustrations that show how electricity is created and distributed. The first lets the user see the main components of a power plant, while the second outlines what is involved in transmission from the power plant to the destination. A less flashy but more detailed description of the electricity generation process is provided by the Energy Information...

Powering a Generation of Change is a Smithsonian Institution documentation project that is a response to the coming deregulation of the electric power industry in the United States and Canada. The site is interesting almost as much for its information on electricity and the history of electric power regulation, as for its information explaining deregulation and its societal impacts. One of the...

An update to the 1996 State Electricity Profiles, this report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) is "designed to provide basic information about the electricity industry on a State-by-State basis by profiling each State and the District of Columbia with a description of its electricity industry through graphics, and tables." The data for ten states has been changed, with future...