Electrical charge

Have you ever rubbed socks on a carpet and then touched something metal, like a doorknob, and felt a little shock? That's because of something called electrical charge.

Everything around us is made up of tiny things called atoms. Atoms have tiny things inside of them called electrons that are always moving around. Sometimes electrons can leave one atom and go to another. When this happens, the atom that lost an electron becomes positively charged and the atom that gained an electron becomes negatively charged.

Think about it like a game of hot potato. If you're playing hot potato with a group of friends, and every time the music stops one person has to give the potato to someone else, then whoever ends up with the potato at the end is the loser. In the case of atoms, when an electron gets passed from one atom to another, it's like passing the hot potato. The atom that ends up with the extra electron is the loser and becomes negatively charged, while the atom that gave up the electron becomes positively charged.

It's important to note that opposite charges, like positive and negative, attract each other. Think about how magnets work - you can feel them pull towards each other when the poles are opposite. The same thing happens with electrical charges. So, when you rubbed socks on the carpet, you were essentially transferring electrons from the socks to the carpet. This made the carpet negatively charged and your body (which is full of positively charged atoms) positively charged. When you touched the doorknob, the built-up electrical charge from your body jumped to the doorknob and created a spark.

That's the basic explanation of electrical charge - when something gains or loses electrons and becomes positively or negatively charged. It might seem a little complicated, but it's actually happening all around us, all the time!