Done by: Leston Poh(30) : Soo Xin Yang(32) : Clifton Teo(36)

M ORE A BOUT H IM … Benjamin Franklin, who was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America, was also an author, printer and satirist apart from being a leading politician and diplomat. He was a scientist and inventor known for his discoveries in electricity. Benjamin Franklin was born on January 17, 1706 to Josiah Franklin and Abiah Folger as the fifteenth child. Tragically, he died on April 17, 1790.

D ISCOVERY 1 Benjamin Franklin discovered that lightning was a form of electricity and was electrical in nature. A Lightning Rod

KITE EXPERIMENT Benjamin Franklin hypothesized that lightning is an electrical phenomenon, and that the electrical effect of lightning might be transferable to another object and cause an effect that could be recognized as electricity. One way to test his idea would be to see if the lightning would pass through metal. Keen to show the world that lightning was electricity, he decided to use a metal key to do an experiment. In 1752, on a stormy day, he raised his kite with a key tied near his hand. The kite got struck by lightning and he got shocked, proving that lightning is a form of electricity.

H IS C ONTRIBUTIONS Ben understood that lightning was very powerful, and he also out a way to protect people, buildings, and ships from it, the lightning rod. This prevented many cases of fire or electrocution in many buildings or factories. If Ben hadn't discovered lightning was electricity, we would not have anything that could run on it. Although many people have researched electricity and found how it worked, fewer research and experiments would have happened.

D ISCOVERY 2 Benjamin Franklin hypothesized that electricity was not the result of friction and through a series of experiments, he discovered that electrical charge was held statically in positive and negative quantities in various items and electricity is only transferred from one item to another.

H IS C ONTRIBUTIONS This discovery led to further research into the nature of electricity, influencing the invention of batteries by Volta, and the electric motor by Faraday in the early nineteenth century.

I NSPIRATION Benjamin Franklin has inspired us in many aspects. Despite knowing the dangers of lightning in the kite experiment, in order to prove that his hypothesis is correct, he mustered his courage and did the dangerous experiment. His bravery has really inspired us as most others would easily back-off after knowing the dangers of the experiment. Also, he created the lightning rod painstakingly to protect the people from the dangers of lightning. This had inspired us to be thoughtful like how he had tried to improve the lives of others.

R EFLECTION From this assignment, we had learned more about the different difficulties that scientists face while researching and what they had done to overcome these difficulties. We had understood more concepts of science and had also enhanced our knowledge. This assignment had also motivated us to study science even better so that we could become one of those scientists who aim to improve the lives of the others. One of the main problems we faced while doing this project is the choice of scientist to write about. Therefore, we assigned ourselves on one particular topic to find the possible scientists before choosing the one who we feel contributed the most.