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Book Chapter | August 2014
Have you ever rubbed a balloon on your clothes or your hair? What happened? Perhaps you noticed that the balloon somehow made your hair stand up. Maybe you could then stick the balloon to a wall or a ceiling. This…
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Book Chapter | May 2009
This activity is inquiry-based in that students will perform the activity before they formally learn about how a switch works. They will use a multimeter to discover the different settings on a triple-throw switch. The…
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Book Chapter | December 2005
This chapter is based on one of the theoretical problems given at the XXIV International Physics Olympiad. It is an actual application of physics to a real-world situation based on Gauss’s law—one of the most…
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Book Chapter | August 2014
All electrical gadgets and gizmos need an electric current to work. To make it easier to learn about and make circuits, you will need to know the symbols for some components. In this chapter, you will learn about these…
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Book Chapter | May 2019
The guiding question of this investigation is, How does adding more batteries or bulbs to a closed circuit affect the brightness of a single bulb within that circuit? In this lesson, the goal is to figure out how the…
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Book Chapter | May 2009
In this inquiry activity, students will get some experience with static electricity before getting deep into electricity and magnetism. They will not know which combinations will generate static electricity and will…
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Understanding Current Electricity
Book Chapter | September 2010
Predict, Observe, Explain (POE) sequences provide an important way to enhance students' understanding of important scientific ideas. In this chapter, the series of experiments help students understand current…
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Can It Be Electrically Charged?
Book Chapter | February 2014
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about electric charge. It is designed to reveal students’ thinking about the types of materials that can be electrically charged so it’s not important…
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Electric Generators: Connecting With Students
Book Chapter | February 2010
Most students have a very limited sense of where electricity comes from. In this activity, a hand-powered electric generator converts mechanical energy into direct current (DC) electricity that can be used to power a…
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Understanding Static Electricity and Magnetism
Book Chapter | September 2010
Predict, Observe, Explain (POE) sequences provide an important way to enhance students' understanding of important scientific ideas. In this chapter, the series of experiments help students understand static electricity…
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Energy Transfer by Electric Currents
Book Chapter | May 2019
The guiding question of this investigation is, How can we make an electric car move faster? In this lesson, students will apply what they know about electric currents, closed circuits, and the transfer of energy to…
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On Teaching Electricity Through History
Journal Article | October 2023
Electricity is a fascinating phenomenon and one of the most important driving forces in the natural world, and our understanding of it all began with a fossilized lump of tree resin and a mystical rock from ancient…
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Electrical Circuits: Promoting Learning Communities
Book Chapter | February 2010
Direct current (DC) electricity flows through a closed circuit of people, and a battery-powered ball lights up. In this activity, the Energy Ball (or UFO Ball) is a Ping-Pong ball look-alike battery-powered ball that…
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Does Electricity Leak From an Outlet?
Book Chapter | February 2014
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about electricity. It is designed to reveal students’ ideas about how current leaves a wall socket. The probe is best used with middle and high school…
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Fourth-Grade Scientists Investigate Electric Circuits
Book Chapter | December 2006
Trisha Kagey Boswell is a third-grade teacher at an elementary school in Montgomery County, Maryland, where she has taught for eight years. Her school is an art-integrated magnet school. When she wrote this chapter, she…
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