ELKHORN, Nebraska—Ask many kids where electricity comes from and they're likely to point you to an electrical outlet. Ask a student at Mount Michael Benedictine High School and he's likely to explain some of the principles of physics, and perhaps give a demonstration of Faraday's Law.

These prep school students are well versed in the subject because their physics teacher, Father Michael Liebl, has not only covered the material in class lectures and discussions, but has also given students ample opportunities to investigate the subject firsthand. "The idea is to help them see the fundamental connection between electricity and magnetism," says Liebl.

To investigate Faraday's Law of Induction—that a changing magnetic flux will induce an electric current in a conductor—students perform an experiment where they drop a bar magnet through the center of an air core solenoid. In this case, the solenoid is a coil 15 centimeters long and 2 centimeters in radius, made with 520 turns of copper wire. When the magnet travels through the center, an electric current is induced in the coils of the solenoid. The objective is to predict and measure this current. But the task is difficult. First, predicting the outcome is hard because the theoretical expression for the induced current is complicated. Second, the magnet falls too quickly to record voltage changes by simple observation. Technology makes both of these tasks possible.

Using their knowledge of magnetic fields, students derive an expression showing how the magnetic flux in the solenoid will change as the magnet drops through the center. This enables them to write a computer program in BASIC that shows the voltage induced across a resistor as a function of time. Students print out a graph based on the output of the program before proceeding with the experiment.

To measure the induced current as the magnet drops through the solenoid, students use a voltage probe to measure the potential across the resistor. The power supply is adjusted until the potential across the resistor reads two volts. Then the computer is set to record the potential as the magnet falls through the solenoid. Because the magnet has a north and a south pole, each pole will have an opposite effect on the current (one pole will increase the voltage while the other will decrease the voltage). The computer is able to record the data even though the action occurs over an extremely short time interval.

"This is an experiment we couldn't have done before computers," Father Liebl reports. The computations would be "tedious beyond belief" and the voltage levels impossible to measure because of the speed of the interval. "Physics is a very experimental science," he says, "and technology has provided new possibilities for a whole range of experiments." This benefits students, he says, "who get a greater range of experience and broader insight into the way the physical world behaves."

Liebl observes: "The students are always amazed to see how closely the graph of theoretical results computed by their program mirrors the experimental result as measured by the computer and probes."

What's more, the students become curious about other possible outcomes. They want to try the experiment again with fewer coils or altered distances. Liebl encourages such investigation, prodding them to "try anything that might help illuminate what's going on." It's evident that the students are having fun learning. So is Liebl.

Mount Michael Benedictine is a college-prep school for students from all backgrounds, taught by a staff that is 25 percent monastic and 75 percent lay. Its 150 students come primarily from Nebraska, but also from as far away as Denmark, Spain, and China. Living at the school 5 days a week gives them ample time to access the 24 computers in the school's computer lab or the 10 in the physics lab next door.

"I fear they sometimes grow weary when I rant and rave about how wonderful physics is," Liebl says. But his enthusiasm is contagious. A large number of Mount Michael Benedictine graduates go on to pursue scientific careers, many in the fields of medicine and engineering. And out of last year's graduating class of 37, 5 went on to major in physics in college.

Liebl believes a significant future discovery might just be made by a Mount Michael Benedictine alum. He points out that new discoveries are being made all the time. "The computer is the result of the study of physics," he says, "so are DVDs and cell phones." And there are still mysteries of the universe to be pondered. "It takes a combination of intelligence, dedication, and good luck," he surmises. "There's no reason one of our students can't be the one."