View Contributions
An investigation into Building Electric Circuits (Inquiry Based)
Download Files
- NotesMakingCircuits.doc - 159 KB
- Notes3OhmsLaw.doc - 29 KB
- OhmsLawLabTemplate.doc - 32 KB
Or you may download all files as a compressed archive (ZIP).
Submission Information
Karen King
authors
karen.king@scienceandtech.org
contact email
Denver School of Science and Technology
school/organization
5/07
submitted
11/08
updated
Contribution Description
An investigation into Building Electric Circuits (Inquiry Based)
title
Circuit Construction Kit (DC Only)
simulations
ElectricityCircuits
keywords
The main learning goal of this activity is for students to be able to create a circuit in two ways -- first based on their knowledge of voltage, current, and resistance, and then again by following a diagram. However, this activity also has the goal of having students make predictions and observations about circuits. The will return to these predictions and observations a few classes later to derive Ohm's Law and the differences between parallel and series circuits. I have included the notes and lab for Ohm's Law which is used a few days later.
description
High School, Middle School
level
Lab
type
Physics
subject
30 minutes
duration
No
answers included
standards compliance
| Content Level | |||
| Content Standard | K-4 | 5-8 | 9-12 |
| Science as Inquiry - A | |||
| Physical Science - B | |||
| Life Science - C | |||
| Earth & Space Science - D | |||
| Science & Technology - E | |||
| Science in Personal and Social Perspective - F | |||
| History and Nature of Science - G | |||
Nominations for Gold Star

Gold Star contributions are high quality inquiry-based activities that follow the PhET design guidelines (PDF) and that teachers find useful.
Nominate this contribution as a Gold Star Activity
Comments
What do you think about this activity? How did you use it or change it for your class? Professionally constructive comments welcome.

National Science Foundation
"How might the students be challenged if they also bought a resistor at Radio Shack?" - Peter Amato-von Hemert
"The first part would be great for middle school." - Trish Loeblein