can someone pleaseexplain to me what cathodic protection is and how it works? i understand that a metal gets charged but what does that do? Thank you =)

Since this is not my area of expertise, I searched Google under the key words "cathodic protection" to get this:

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=cathodic+protection&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

In the future, you can find the information you desire more quickly, if you use appropriate key words to do your own search. Also see http://hanlib.sou.edu/searchtools/.