In Sciences, my 7th graders were asked to present a PPt on "My Scientist". Each chose a different scientist and then their teacher of English took it one step further and asked them to do the same in English! Here is the result :) Alessandro Volta, by Miriam

1. *
Born February 18,
1745, in Italy,
Culm.
Died on March 5,
1827 (82 years).
Italian Physicist

2. * Volta was born and educated in Como, Italy , where he became professor of physics at the Royal School in
1774 . His passion had always been the study of electricity , and as a young student he wrote a Latin poem in
his fascinating new discovery. Vi attractiva ignis electrici ac phaenomenis inde pendentibus was his first
scientific book. Despite his genius from a young age , he began to speak only when he was four years old .
* In 1751, when six, he was sent to the Jesuit school because his family’s interest was for him to follow an
ecclesiastical career, but in 1759, just fourteen, he decided to study physics, and two years later, he left the
Jesuit school and gave up the ecclesiastical career. In 1775 he enhanced the electrophorus, a machine that
produces static electricity . Volta is commonly credited as the inventor of this machine but it was actually
invented three years earlier.
* He studied the chemistry of gases between 1776 and 1778. After reading an essay by Benjamin Franklin on
"flammable air " and carefully looking it up in Italy, Volta discovered methane . In November 1776, Volta
found methane in Lake Maggiore; in 1778 he was able to isolate methane .
* In 1779 he became professor of physics at the University of Pavia, a position he held for 25 years. In 1794
Peregrini Volta married Teresa , daughter of Count Ludovico Peregrini . The couple had three children .
* Back in September 1801, he travelled to Paris at the invitation of the emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, to show
the features of his invention (the battery) at the Institut de France . And, in honor of his work in the field of
electricity , Napoleon appointed him Count Volta in 1810 .
* Volta died in 1927 and is buried in the city of Como, Italy . The " Voltiano Temple " near Lake Como is
devoted to the work of Italian physicist museum: their original instruments and papers are on display there.

3. Sources:
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alessandro_Volta
Miriam Lopes,
7º A
April 2014