Education Portfolio
Receptivity Intelligence Knowledge Experience Expression
Electricity, 4th grade boys, 45 min.
Main Points
- There are parallels between finding out about the world - how electricity works ( the outside), and finding out about ourselves - how our minds work (the inside).Investigating electricity is part of the science of physics. Whatever you discover today will make you more knowledgeable about electricity. IT WILL ALSO TEACH YOU MORE ABOUT HOW YOUR OWN MIND WORKS.
- When a light bulb lights, it's because there is a good connection, a self referral loop between the battery, wire and bulb.
- When we learn something, we are connecting with the knowledge and relating it to ourselves and what we already know about something. Knowledge is structured in Consciousness.
Objectives for learning.
By the end of the lesson:
- Students will be able to predict when a light bulb will light using a wire and battery.
- Students will be able to give reasons or generalizations about the bulbs that light and don't light.
- Students will see and appreciate a relationship between the process of finding out more about electricity and the way their own minds work.
Materials . Students are given a battery, bulb and piece of wire and asked to see if they can light the bulb. Using a sheet of paper with pictures of various possibilities, students are asked to first predict, then to test out each possible combination of wires to see what actually lights the bulb.
Review electricity (static electricity and its biggest example in nature - lightning, close relationship of magnets and electricity, famous names in the story of electricity, definitions)
Attention step.
Talk about or show them the string of Christmas lights that don't work and speculate why. Ask for their input. Ask them to imagine a Christmas tree with lights on it and what happens when the lights are plugged in. Ask them to consider a similar thing happening in their minds when they learn something, have an idea (all their brain cells becoming lively, lighting up).
Wholeness for the lesson
Science is a search for answers. Scientists study the universe and how it works. They ask themselves questions and then work out step-by-step methods to find the answers. Scientists start out with a hypothesis, a guess based on known facts. Then they test their ideas by doing experiments, carefully observing and recording the results.
Describe what students will be doing:
- investigating electricity and how to get light bulbs to light,
- filling out prediction sheets
- drawing pictures of what worked and what didn't work with ideas of why,
- relating it all to the way their own minds work and the way they learn things,
- i.e., Are there things you can say about electricity that you could also say about yourself?
Purpose.
Investigating electricity is part of the science of physics. Solving a scientific mystery, or finding out the answer to a question, requires planning and the careful collecting of facts. Whatever you discover today will make you more knowledgeable about electricity and yourself as a person.
Open-ended Phase - What makes the light bulb light?
Procedures
- Students try to light their bulb, using a piece of bare wire and a battery. This may take 20 minutes.
- They should try to devise more than one way to light the bulb, noting it on their prediction sheet.
- they should also note all the ways that don't work.
Convergent Phase
- They should try to come up with reasons for what worked and didn't work. i.e. a generalization or rule.
- Those that work faster can draw diagrams of arrangements that worked and didn't work giving reasons for each.
- As time allows, students could also try some connections using a battery and two wires.
- Teacher walks around asking questions, encouraging, helping students to be successful in each phase of the exploration, directing them to the next phase.
Fulfillment. Teacher compliments class on their good work, good ideas, asks them to share what they've learned (ways that worked and didn't work).
Closure. Teacher asks what conclusions, or patterns we can see in what we've found (i.e. bulb won't light when only one side of battery is touched with the wire.) Teacher summarizes and tells students what they can look forward to after Christmas with more lessons and experiments on electricity.
Homework. Students should finish prediction sheets and drawings.
Assessment strategies.
Verbal- question students as to what they learned from lesson - about electricity and themselves.
Also, look at what they wrote out. If there seem to be gaps or misunderstandings, go over it in class to make sure everyone gets the main ideas. Present some more drawings and have them make predictions.
Useful Definitions
Battery - A device that uses chemicals to produce an electric current.
Electric current - a flow rate of electric charges; measured in amperes.
Ampere - The unit for measuring electric current; amp. for short.
Electric circuit - a loop-shaped path along which electricity can flow; (formed by a loop of conductors.)
Electrical conductor - a material that allows electric charges to pass through it; usually contain large numbers of electrons called "free" electrons.
Electricity - A form of energy associated with the presence and movement of electrical charges. Current electricity is the power that we actually use in our homes and is made up of millions of moving electrons.
Electrode - Part of the battery where electric current enters or leaves the battery.
Filament - A thin coil of wire, usually made from the element tungsten, inside a light bulb.
Generator - a device that converts mechanical energy into electrical energy.
Insulators - Materials that don't conduct electricity such as rubber and plastic.
Law of electric charges - States that unlike charges attract each other and like charges repel each other.
Magnetism - A natural, invisible force (like static electricity) that makes certain metals attract or repel one another. the ancient Greeks noticed that certain rocks were magnets. Today we know that magnets work because of the motion of electric charges.
Molecule -A tiny particle of a substance. Every molecule is made up of two or mote atoms joined together. ( For example, normally all the molecules in a piece of iron are facing in different directions. However, if we can rearrange the molecules so that they all face the same way, they will act together as a magnet, making a powerful force.)
Parallel circuit - an electric circuit where several objects, like light bulbs, are connected side by side so that the same amount of electricity goes through all of them.
Series circuit - an electric circuit where several objects, such as light bulbs, are connected one after another so that electricity goes through each one in turn.
Static electricity - the buildup of static charges )(stationary electric charges) in one place; these electric charges can be positive or negative.
Volt - Unit of potential difference.
Voltage - Potential difference; the energy available to move charges from one point to another in an electric circuit.
Watt - a unit that measures electrical power at the point where it is used in a circuit.
Important Names
Thomas Edison invented the first light bulb in 1879, using a piece of scorched thread as a filament.
Michael Faraday (1791-1867) invented the electric generator. In 1831, he discovered how to use magnets and copper wire to make electricity. He found that electricity can be used to make magnets, and magnets can be used to make electricity.
Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning rod to protect buildings from lightning which can produce a giant electric spark carrying up to several million volts. (1746)
Luigi Galvani accidentally discovered the ability of some solutions to conduct an electric current. (1798)
Samuel Morse, an American inventor and painter, invented Morse code in 1840. Each letter of the alphabet is represented by a simple combination of long and short electrical signals that can be easily transmitted down a single ware. The code is written as dots, dashes, and spaces.
Hans Christian Oersted, a Danish scientist, did an experiment proving that an electric current moving through a wire produces magnetism. (1820)
Alessandro Volta, Professor of physics at the University of Pavia, Italy, discovered that chemical action between two metals could produce electricity. One of Volta's most famous experiments (called the Voltaic pile) represented the first real electric storage battery (1792)
ELECTRICITY
Wholeness
Science is a search for answers. Scientists study the universe and how it works. They ask themselves questions and then work out step-by-step methods to find the answers. Scientists start out with a hypothesis, a guess based on known facts. Then they test their ideas by doing experiments, carefully observing and recording the results. Solving a scientific mystery, or finding out the answer to a question, requires planning and the careful collecting of facts.
Purpose
Investigating electricity is part of the science of physics. Whatever you discover today will make you more knowledgeable about electricity. IT WILL ALSO TEACH YOU MORE ABOUT HOW YOUR OWN MIND WORKS.