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Taylor Dale's Build it
Circuits: Bulbs and Batteries
Engagement
An engagement is a hook that is exciting and prompts the students to get involved.
Story time!
One day I decided to go spelunking, which is exploring caves. I went to linville caverns and got my helmet on and was ready to explore some caves. One thing you should know about me is that I get spooked easily. I get scared when i am in the dark or if things jump out at me. It is terrifying! Well that exact thing happened I was just examining a stalagmite, which is a column rising from the floor of a cave, formed of calcium salts deposited by dripping water and often uniting with a stalactite, sorry that is my dorky side coming out. Anyway I was examining this stalagmite when a bat comes out of nowhere and knocks me off my balance. Not only was i spooked but I was falling. I fell and hit my helmet on the stalagmite and broke my light. I told you early on in the story that I don't like the dark, so i was alone and in the pitch dark with just my broken headlamp, a small light bulb, two wires, and a battery. So your job is to figure out how to use these materials to create light so I can escape from this dark terrifying cave.
Exploration
This step must be hands on and engaging for the students. They must work through something! In this case the students will try to light up a lightbulb using only the materials at hand: A lightbulb, two wires, and a battery. When students are exploring make sure to ask questions about their process, ask them to draw down what didn't work and what did work so they know what they have already tested and how successful it was. Some questions to ask are: Why do you think that didn't work? Why do you think that worked? Can you try it with one wire? After a while if there are still students who haven't figured out to light the light bulb have students who were successful go around and help those who weren't. Have those students ask questions and really teach the others about what they know.
Explanation
This is the step where you make sense of your data. Make sure to help your students relate their data to content terms with explanations. Provoke the students into a discussion about these terms to see if they can define them together as a class.
For this lesson we described:
Conductors- what electrons can pass through, metal, wires, etc.
Insulators- what electrons can't pass through, rubber, glass, etc..
Battery- the energy source or electron pump
Light bulb- object that produces light from electricity
Switch- the circuit breaker, can open and close a circuit
Closed circuit- a full circular path, lights up the light
Open circuit- no full circular path, electrons cannot pass through
to create light
Short circuit- concentrates heat in one area, no full circular path
Here is Jeff explaining circuits
Expansion
This is the step where you apply the ideas you learned previously to a new situation.
For this project involving understanding circuits I went to the library and checked out Snap circuits Motion. and played with building different types of circuits. I worked in the library Alone on Tuesday April 11th at 3:00pm.
Teacher Notes: Experiment with this set before giving to students because it can be confusing. Also use the instruction guide to ensure correct usage.
Evaluation
This is the step where you put all that you take everything that you taught your students and you let them show you what they learned.
Tell a story, fiction or non fiction, that is about a time where something went wrong with the electricity. In the story tell what electrical problem your character had and how they are going to fix the problem. Use the vocabulary words we learned in this lesson to provide more information to the solution your character uses. Use at least 5 of the 8 words but bonus points will be given to the students who use all 8 words.
Sample answer:
Once Upon a time there was a princess named julia and she was left alone in her giant castle. That same night there was a huge storm coming her way. The storm knocked a tree into the castile damaging the breaker that controls the lights. She then had to rummage for a flashlight to see all that had been damaged. She noticed that there was two wires that had been disconnected from the big battery. She had to use a guess and check method to figure out how to make the lights work again. She noticed that the conductor had been damaged making it go from a closed circuit to an open circuit because of the tree that had fallen. She connected the wires to the battery several times in different ways and found out that you have to use the positive and the negative sides to hook up just right to the battery and lightbulb to get it to work. Julia had eliminated the insulator which was the tree to make the conductor be able to work properly.
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