Fluorescent Transmission

First you need to gather up all of the materials you will need. Below is a list of the following items needed to conduct this project:

• A self-exciting fluorescent bulb
• High-power transmission lines
• One of your parents or an adult to take you to the power lines

Are you ready? Let’s get started. First, you would need to get one of your parents or another adult to take you to the power lines. Don’t forget to take the fluorescent bulb with you! Next you stand underneath the power lines and hold the fluorescent bulb up over your head. What happened? The bulb should have lit up. So why/how did the bulb light up? It’s because when you stand underneath the power lines there is an electric charge between the ground and power lines. Thus, there is enough energy there to stimulate the gas in the bulb in order to make it glow. Cool, huh? There are a couple of other ideas that you could do to change up the project a little bit and see what happens. You could try different sizes and shapes of other fluorescent bulbs or neon bulbs and you could also go to a different set of power lines and see what happens there as well.