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All Charged Up, Grades 4-5
Program Desciption: Imagine being 300,000 miles from home and needing to repair a circuit board. Your students will be glad they took this class! By reading schematics, building simple circuits, and learning basic concepts such as series vs. parallel circuits, students are introduced to the science of electrical
power.
Vocabulary:
| circuit |
series circuit |
single throw switch |
| electricity |
parallel circuit |
double throw switch |
|
schematics |
alternating current |
direct current |
Possible Class Activities:
- Study basic schematic symbols.
- Construct a series of simple circuits using schematic drawings.
- Examine how electricity works at the atomic level.
- Learn the difference between a series and parallel circuit.
Pre-Activities (in your classroom):
- List how many objects in the house use electricity.
- Introduce vocabulary.
- Find out what it costs per month for each student’s family to use electricity.
Post-Activities:
- Learn to read an electric meter.
- Compile a list of alternative energy sources for electricity.
State of California Science Standards met in this class:
Grade 4
Physical Sciences
1. Electricity and magnetism are related effects that have many useful applications in everyday life. As a basis for understanding this concept, students know:
a. how to design and build simple series and parallel circuits using components such as wires, batteries, and bulbs.
b. how to build a simple compass and use it to detect magnetic effects, including Earth's magnetic field.
c. electric currents produce magnetic fields and how to build a simple electromagnet.
d. the role of electromagnets in the construction of electric motors, electric generators, and simple devices such as doorbells and earphones.
e. electrically charged objects attract or repel each other.
f. magnets have two poles, labeled north and south, and like poles repel each other while unlike poles attract each other.
g. electrical energy can be converted to heat, light and motion.
Grade 5
Physical Sciences
1. Elements and their combinations account for all the varied types of matter in the world. As a basis for understanding this concept, students know:
c. metals have properties in common, such as electrical and thermal conductivity. Some metals, such as aluminum (Al), iron (Fe), nickel (Ni), copper (Cu), silver (Ag), gold (Au), are pure elements while others, such as steel and brass, are composed of a combination of elemental metals.
Grades 9-12
Electronic and Magnetic Phenomena
5. Electric and magnetic phenomena are related and have many practical applications. As a basis for understanding this concept, students know:
a. how to predict the voltage or current in simple direct current electric circuits constructed from batteries, wires, resistors, and capacitors.
e. charged particles are sources of electric fields and experience forces due to the electric fields from other charges.
f. magnetic materials and electric currents (moving electric charges) are sources of magnetic fields and experience forces due to magnetic fields of other sources.
Chemistry
Nuclear Processes
11. Nuclear processes are those in which an atomic nucleus changes, including radioactive decay of naturally occurring and man-made isotopes, nuclear fission, and nuclear fusion. As a basis for understanding this concept, students know:
a. protons and neutrons in the nucleus are held together by strong nuclear forces which are stronger than the electromagnetic repulsion between the protons.
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