Life as we know it would not be possible without electric transformers, so there are fewer more pertinent topics for your eager young engineers. An astounding amount of background information is provided to help you develop a lecture on...

Don't know how to make the initial connection on electric circuits? This lesson provides the background to present the introductory vocabulary to learning about electric circuits. It is organized in a meaningful progression with an...

Ideal for your electricity unit, especially with middle schoolers, this lesson plan gets engineers using multimeters in electrical circuits to explore the relationships among voltage, current, and resistance. Older learners may even plot...

Students examine how electric circuits are controlled with a switch. They incorporate a switch into a battery/bulb circuit. They design and create their own switches using everyday materials.

Use some electrifying lessons to learn about electricity. Future scientists discover the history of electricity and the basics of electric circuits. They learn how to read an electricity bill and then create circuits to power a fan,...

Take a very basic understanding of circuits and develop a strong understanding of the parts and function of a circuit. This activity is developed to be an independent exploration of circuits from the basics to series and parallel models....

Students investigate what causes electrical circuits to work. They construct a wire circuit and pass a paperclip through the maze, trying not to touch the wire, and answer discussion questions.

Learners explore circuit structure, draw a schematic for it, and construct a two button buzzer model out of wires, a battery, buttons (switches), and a buzzer.

Students investigate energy consumption by researching wattage.  In this electricity lesson, students discuss how electricity works and gets transferred to our electronic devices through generators and circuits.  Students...

Work with your class to connect series and parallel circuits to hybrid cars. The lesson introduces basic circuit diagrams before having scholars apply the understanding of the difference between parallel and series circuits to...

Sound the alarm about a great resource. Scholars first build a simple circuit to learn the basics about electric currents. They then design an alarm system in which a buzzer activates when pressure is applied to a doormat.

Students create a variety of simple, series and parallel electrical circuits to illustrate how electricity flows through different types of basic circuits.

Learners explore concept of current in electrical circuits. They examine how energy from the sun can be used to power everyday items, including vehicles.

Students examine how batteries work, how they provide power to the simple circuit within the battery, and how the switch controls the flow of electrons; students then disassemble a flashlight, and draw a schematic of a flashlight's...

Following detailed directions, teams collect the voltage and current outputs of a photovoltaic cell by adjusting the resistance. Using the collected data, they determine the highest power output. Implications for weather and a large...

Make works of art using a vintage yet effective etching strategy. The surface of a semiconductor chip has specific patterns formed through a process called etching. Through a lab investigation, young scholars recreate that process...

Learners compare a stepper motor from a traditional motor. In this physics lesson, students summarize how it works. They build their own stepper motor and explore its uses.

Scientists in California developed a bionic eye that allows blind people to see edges of objects in black and white and costs $145,000. In the activity, groups of scholars discuss bioengineering, focusing on the human eye. They then...

It's not so straightforward — lines can model a variety of applications. Pupils experience linear relationships within the context of science, including Hooke's and Ohm's Laws. Class members got a taste of motion and speed from the...

Young scholars visit a website that takes them inside of a computer to see how it works. They investigate the people who contributed to computer technology.

A collection of video lectures from a course introducing students to the basic concepts of electrical technology. Webpage includes thirty-nine lectures from a professor at the National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning. Lectures...

Circuit analysis is the process of finding all the currents and voltages in a network of connected components. We look at the basic elements used to build circuits, and find out what happens when elements are connected together into a...

This lesson introduces electricity, batteries and motors using a LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robot. The associated activity guides students to build a simple LEGO NXT set-up and see the practical implementation of the concepts discussed. Before...

Students build and use a very basic Coulter electric sensing zone particle counter to count an unknown number of particles in a sample of "paint" to determine if enough particles per ml of paint exist to meet a quality standard. In a lab...