Free Electricity Lesson

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This month we have been focused on electricity and magnetism in our homeschool. Christian is 9th grade and Eva Mae is 7th grade and this year we have been studying physics in a "one room schoolhouse" type of way. I created a schedule that allows for a 4-5 hour a week assignment for my 9th grader. This includes scheduled reading pages, video lessons, written narrations, and lab homework with completed lab notebook assignments. For Eva Mae, her assignments are less rigorous as a 7th grader and include less reading than Christian, but still written narrations and lab assignments. Read all about my schedule here and download the physics plans for free!

As I was preparing our lab activities I thought I would share a lesson plan for your 6-12 grade students that focuses on the difference between volts and current. I found the concept fascinating as we are using coin cell batteries for several projects. If we were using mostly AA batteries we would need to have an electrical resistor connected to the circuit in order to not burn out the LED. Even though our projects are using the same voltage, if we were using 3 volts of a AA battery our LED would burn too bright and not last long. 


The first thing you will need to do is gather all your materials.

  Download the lesson plan here or continue following the blog post for step by step!


Step 1

Gather your supplies:  Various battery sizes, LED lights, electrical tape, copper wire, smoothie straws
(all the links are to my Amazon affiliate site! Thank you for supporting our homeschool through these links!)

Step 2

Watch the instructional videos below! I suggest watching in this order:
FUSE School Current
 

Fuse School Resistor
   

Science Buddies Light Saber
   

Science Buddies Resistor
   

Step 3

Use your copper wire, various size batteries, electrical tape, and LED lights to experiment in the voltage and current to light up an LED! As we experimented there never was an instant depletion or explosion of the LED. But take precautions at home if you use the LED without a resistor or breadboard!

Step 5

Complete the FUSE school math questions from the video and write in your science notebook about what you discovered through the process! Another extension to try with coin cell batteries and LED lights is called Paper Circuitry! The website Chibitronics has some amazing educator resources for teachers and students! Our students in our Charlotte Mason science club will have a blast!

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