{"id":5383,"date":"2018-03-01T23:06:35","date_gmt":"2018-03-02T06:06:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/?p=5383"},"modified":"2018-03-02T12:01:20","modified_gmt":"2018-03-02T19:01:20","slug":"5383","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/2018\/03\/01\/5383\/","title":{"rendered":"T-GEM-Circuits"},"content":{"rendered":"

T-GEM-Circuits<\/p>\n

One of the areas where I find students struggle every year is the construction of parallel and series circuits. When using actual batteries\/wires, students often are able to make a lightbulb glow or a motor run simply by randomly connecting different objects together. While this might accomplish a goal, it does not help build student understanding as to how circuits can be designed.<\/p>\n

In looking through resources to help with this T-GEM lesson, I came upon a resource called Circuit World, provided by Cumbria and Lancashire Education Online (CLEO)<\/a>. Circuit World is incredibly helpful because it allows students to build circuits with no real room for false-positives, and lets students represent their circuits using 3 different visual themes.<\/p>\n

\"\" \"\" \"\"<\/p>\n

Generate:<\/u><\/p>\n

To start this lesson, I would demonstrate for students how to build a working circuit using Circuit World. I would then lead us in a talk about the difference between parallel and series circuits, culminating with the class building a parallel circuit together on the smartboard.<\/p>\n

I would then ask students to build 2 different circuits; one using the larger lightbulb and the other using the smaller lightbulbs. I would also ask them to add switches so that both lightbulbs could be used independently.<\/p>\n

Attached to this section I would ask the following questions:
\n-Why do you think our original circuit design was not able to light up the large lightbulb?<\/p>\n

-Why is switch placement so important? Were there places you put the switch that didn\u2019t help with the goal of operating them independently?<\/p>\n

-Did anyone happen to burn out a lightbulb? (A common problem of adding too many batteries.)<\/p>\n

Evaluate:<\/u><\/p>\n

Next, I would present a number of circuits to students that are non-functional. I would then ask them to recreate the circuit on their own computer, but improve it by making it functional. The problems with circuits here would range from simple (no battery) to more advanced (more bulbs than the batteries can power) to quite difficult (wiring all over the place).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Modify:<\/u>
\nFor this final step, I would ask students to get creative with their circuit design. I would ask that they use newer elements (resistors) and incorporate them into their previous circuits. What effect do these new elements have? How do they change what you are able to do with the circuit? I would also challenge them to use a variety of output devices (alarm, motor) instead of just lightbulbs. How do series and parallel circuits differ when adding in a variety of output devices?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

T-GEM-Circuits One of the areas where I find students struggle every year is the construction of parallel and series circuits. When using actual batteries\/wires, students often are able to make a lightbulb glow or a motor run simply by randomly connecting different objects together. While this might accomplish a goal, it does not help build […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49876,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1669392],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-b-t-gem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49876"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5383"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5398,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5383\/revisions\/5398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}