Fourth Grade
Worksheets
Thomas Edison
The railroad wasn't the only thing that changed this country after the Civil War. Electricity also changed it. One man made a big impact. Thomas Edison's ideas changed the way that people lived.
Thomas Edison grew up asking a lot of questions. He liked to know how things worked. He also liked to solve problems and make things better. He was an inventor. He invented many things. He became well known after inventing the phonograph. His greatest impact as an inventor was his later work with electricity.
Thomas Edison worked on the light bulb. Edison did not invent the light bulb. He improved an earlier idea. The first light bulb did not work well. The light did not last a long time before the filament burned out. Edison and his helpers worked on different ways to make light in a sealed glass. They needed something that would not burn out quickly. In 1880, they found a new filament. It was made with bamboo fiber. The fiber could last up to fifteen hundred hours. Others later improved on Edison's idea.
