The syllabus for this class will be posted in December.  In the meantime, you can find last year’s  syllabus here.  This year’s version will devote more time to the people, organizations, and events related to the development of electric power and the infrastructure that makes our modern world of electrical and electronic gadgets possible.  The course is really organized around this question:  What happens when I hook my gadgets to a battery or plug them into a wall socket?  From here we branch into a number of related questions: What is the “stuff” that comes out of the wall and into my gadgets, and how does it make my gadgets work?  Where does it come from, and how is it made?  And how did we come to understand electricity and to harness it to power our modern world?

The course requires three textbooks and an

electric circuits kit that we’ll use in class to

experiment with electricity; these will be

available in the bookstore.

Alan Hirshfeld, The Electric Life of Michael Faraday.

Kazuhiro Fujitaki, The Manga Guide to Electricity.

Jill Jonnes, Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla,
Westinghouse and the Race to Electrify the World.

The kit we’ll use is Snap Circuits Model SC-300; a

picture of the box is shown at right. We’ll build and

test circuits during designated class periods, and

on those days students will need to bring their kits

to class, along with at least 4 AA batteries.