Other
The Blobz Guide to Electric Circuits
An exciting interactive site of games, activities, information, and quizzes about electric circuits. You'll learn what makes circuits work, all about conductors and insulators, switches, changing circuits, and circuit diagrams. Learning...
Other
Tech Topics: Electricity: Circuits
What is a circuit? How does it work? The animated diagrams and accompanying text will make it easy to understand the concept of circuits!
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments: Introduction to Electric Circuits
This activity will show how to properly connect wires to make a closed electric circuit. Included in this will be how to connect batteries in series and/or in parallel, and how to properly measure potential drops across a resistor and...
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Lighting the Way: Electrical Circuits and Lamp Wiring
Through a series of self-guided activities, students will explore basic electrical circuits and then build a working model of a circuit through the process of wiring a lamp. They will understand the flow of electrons through a circuit,...
National Geographic
National Geographic: Building Circuits
In this lesson, students build series and parallel circuits and test their conductivity. Includes handouts with diagrams, and a vocabulary list with definitions.
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Electric Circuits Guided Inquiry
An electrical circuit guided inquiry where middle schoolers investigate what an electric circuit is, the main parts of a circuit and the difference between series and parallel circuits. Students groups create a circuit using materials...
Physics Classroom
The Physics Classroom: Electric Circuits: Circuit Builder
Students manipulate this virtual electronic circuit board where they can add resistors, light bulbs, wires, and ammeters to build a circuit, explore Ohm's law, and compare and contrast series, parallel, and combination circuits. Three...
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Investigate Electric Circuits Through Construction and Illustration
In this physics instructional activity 4th grade students investigate electrical circuits in greater depth than the FOSS unit used in a prior grade in school. Students become familiar with a computer simulation allowing them greater...
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Introduction to Open and Closed Electrical Circuits
This activity introduces students to the concepts of electrical current and open and closed circuits. Students will act out open and closed circuits as a whole class with some students acting as the "motors" or "light bulbs."
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Saltwater Circuit
Students build a saltwater circuit, which is an electrical circuit that uses saltwater as part of the circuit. Students investigate the conductivity of saltwater, and develop an understanding of how the amount of salt in a solution...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: From Sunlight to Electric Current
The lesson will first explore the concept of current in electrical circuits. Current will be defined as the flow of electrons. Photovoltaic (PV) cell properties will then be introduced. This will lead to the principle of "Conservation of...
American Geosciences Institute
American Geosciences Institute: Earth Science Week: Mineral Electrical Conductivity
The purpose of this activity is to test the conductivity of various minerals with a simple electrical circuit and draw conclusions about which ones would be used in electronics.
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Current Electricity Lights On
An exploratory lesson that provides the learners with a chance to discover the possible connections in an electrical circuit in a controlled setting.
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Comparing Current Intensities of Series, Parallel, and Complex Circuits
Students will investigate the differences of current in series, parallel, and complex circuits through the construction of a small house containing the different types of circuits.
BBC
Bbc Schools: Ks2 Bitesize: Science: Physical Processes: Electrical Conductors
Find out which material will save Steve from getting shocked by the electric eels. Following the activity, read more about electrical conductors, and then take a quick quiz to check for understanding.
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Magnets and Electricity: Creating Magnetism With Electricity
Young scholars will work in small groups to design at least one complete circuit using multiple materials. They will record their observations of how they created an electrical circuit using diagrams and notes in their journals. Using a...
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Investigating Electricity
In this interactive activity, students will explore electricity and be able to design and create a complete electrical circuit. Students will also learn what is necessary to light a light bulb. Creative thought, ideas, and, brainstorming...
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments: Ac Circuit Analysis
This electrical engineering activity uses a TI graphing calculator to analyze AC circuits including sine waves, capacitance and inductive reactance, solving series AC circuits, and RMS calculations.
Utah Education Network
Uen: Flowing Electrons
For this fifth grade activity, students explore electric circuits by acting out different types, then construct circuits themselves.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Introduction to Circuits and Ohm's Law
Students will explore the basics of dc circuits analyzing the light from light bulbs when connected in series and parallel circuits. Ohm's Law and the equation for power dissipated by a circuit will be the primary equations used. Using...
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Mit: Open Course Ware: Courses: Physics Ii: Electricity and Magnetism
College-level physics course highlighting electricity and magnetism. This course is divided into several modules including electric fields, magnetic fields, electromagnetic forces, conductors and dielectrics, electromagnetic waves, and...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Keep It Moving! From Electrons to Electric Motors
Students act as engineers to apply what they know about how circuits work in electrical/motorized devices to design their own battery-operated model motor vehicles with specific paramaters. They calculate the work done by the vehicles...
Concord Consortium
Concord Consortium: Stem Resources: Heat and Light From Electricity
Understand the energy transformations that happens when you light a bulb with a battery. Activity requires students to build a simple circuit and take temperature and time measurements. Lab includes procedure with questions that can be...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Completing the Circuit
In the everyday electrical devices we use - calculators, remote controls and cell phones - a voltage source such as a battery is required to close the circuit and operate the device. In this hands-on activity, students use a battery,...