Spark your students’ interest in electricity. Taking Charge is designed to help teachers bring the intimidating subject of electricity to students in the middle grades. These teacher-tested, hands-on activities use readily available materials and make students’ first exposure to electricity a fun one. Students explore static electricity in the first module before seeing that static electricity can move as current electricity, which is investigated in the second module. The unique historical approach of the first module shows students how we developed our modern ideas of electricity by introducing them to the ideas of Ben Franklin and other early explorers of electricity.