Circuits

I thoroughly enjoyed Joyce's introduction to some topics with energy, electricity, and circuits at an introductory level; especially without trying to throw a lot of technical terms at us.  As a electrical engineer, I appreciate a great presentation on anything like this.  I also appreciated how Joyce tried to draw out our understanding of our observations and led us to subtle discoveries.  There was an amazing amount of information in the lesson that was barely touched on.  As a teacher, there is the fine balancing act of exposing students at their readiness and this lesson was wonderfully executed at helping us start to think about electricity in simple lay terms.  At higher grade levels I can imagine introducing accurate terminology and relationships between what we observe, predict, and can measure.  I also like the hands-on of any kind with science and pure-science.  Manipulatives (even if virtual) give all of us some time to play, explore, discover, reinforce and socailize over the new material.  Thanks.

This morning's presentation was old hat for me as I had participated twice in the training of how to use the STC kit titled Electric Circuits. I taught this kit with fourth grade last year and I found the experimentschallenging for fourth graders: Joyce uses almost the same procedures with her high school students!I have finally begun to understand the differences of the two circuit varieties (I have never set up Christmas lights) and I am a seasoned student!I enjoyed making my series circuit, because I could show off my expertise to the other kids. Joyce said that she  only presented pieces of the curriculum, and we know that's not inquiry. But she did have good techniques to bring out ideas from the class about electricity and light bulbs. I think a good way to start this unit, from an inquiry viewpoint would be to give each student a toy car to roll around and to write down anything that might explain what happens when you move the toy- that takes energy!

                                                   Then we could have the discussion about energy.

This lesson was a challenge for me.  Electricity and Magnetism is my weakest field in physics, but I still had a familiarity for the material that was better than most.  It was difficult to not call out the answers, but at the same time, being a physics teacher, I was aware that I was supposed to be an  ‘expert’ and was nervous about calling out a wrong answer, even in the inquiry part where there weren’t many (if any) wrong answers.  The discussion about energy was well rounded and pointed to and hinted at a lot of untapped areas for further discussion.

I like that this lesson can be used for lots of different age groups at lots of different levels.  The questions and actions at the beginning were really good for launching a ton of different discussions. 

The alliterative tools were good;

positive=push;

closed=circle=circuit=conduit=continuous

The hands-on fun with the battery was great.  I liked the cut outs on the wall for showing how the circuit worked.  I’d go a step further and have four of them up there, setting them up for showing the four different circuits.  (I am thinking about how I could do that on individual smaller whiteboards so that each pair could do it at their desk, not limiting it to those ‘brave’ enough to go to the board.

The introduction of the ‘secret’ symbol language for circuit boards was a nice touch.

I think the lesson on circuits could be used with a first grade class. Joyce suggested using non akaline batteries to so students would have less of a chance of having the wire heat up.  The students would be very interested in trying to get the circuits to work.  I think I could demonstrate the current by setting up dominoes and then putting a space and that would demonstrate an open circuit and then by eliminating the space it would demonstrate a closed circuit. However, you would need to explain how it would keeps repeating. You could also show how electricity takes different paths by having the dominoes hit two and then splitting in different directions but continuing the circuit. 

THANKS! Joyce for all of your great information. Because of its content I really do not need to change the information too much it fits perfectly into my curriculum because I have electricity as part of it. I appreciate the extra attention spent to helping me build what I need to be successful. I have done simple circuits at camp but this added so much more.