Perkins School for the Blind
Building a Basic Series Circuit
Make science a fully accessible subject for your learners with visual impairments. They'll use tactile models to explore the nature of basic electrical circuits. Template board, wires, batteries, and Velcro are used to construct the...
DiscoverE
Squishy Circuits
Make electricity flow through Play-Doh. Individuals create animals or other creatures using Play-Doh. The engineering aspect? Eyes that light up and Play-Doh that conducts electricity.
Computer Science Unplugged
The Peruvian Coin Flip–Cryptographic Protocols
A digital flip. Introduce your classes to cryptographic protocols using and, or, and not gates. Groups create a complete circuit to convert a binary number into another one. This type of one-way function allows pupils to verify the...
PBS
Locker Lights
Light up a locker for a more festive hallway! Scholars learn about electric currents, LEDs, and switches, then experiment with their own circuits. They use the circuits to design and build locker decorations that light up when turned on...
PBS
Hands-On Engineering Challenges to Bolster Your Electricity, Sound, and Force Units
Need some activities to go along with your unit? A collection of hands-on activities from PBS offers opportunities to add to your electricity, sound, and force units. The electricity activities revolve around building a pinball-type...
Curated OER
Can You See the Light?
Third and fourth graders use this worksheet to help them draw their own version of a fully functioning circuit. They see the battery, the light bulb, and two wires with clips. They must draw the complete circuit, using these elements, on...
Curated OER
Many Paths
Students explore the composition and practical application of parallel circuitry, compared to series circuitry. They design and build parallel circuits and investigate their characteristics, and apply Ohm's law. They recognize that...
Curated OER
Ohm's Law: Getting There Hands On
Young scientists inductively derive Ohm's Law of voltage, resistance, and current by creating series and parallel circuits with 9-volt batteries and light bulbs. A week's worth of experiments, observation, and hands-on activities are...
Curated OER
Are These Made of Metal?
How can you tell if something is made of metal? Use a table of data and a science experiment to determine which items are made of metal. The experiment requires adult supervision, as it instructs third graders to build an electrical...
Curated OER
Get Charged!
Students explore the concept of electricity in this activity based unit. In this physical science lesson plan, students focus on electricity and electrical engineering. The teaching unit includes 5 activities to develop students...
Curated OER
Junior Solar Sprint Series: Electrical Power
Through scientific inquiry, middle schoolers discover how to arrange solar cells in order to produce electricity. This activity is intended to prepare learners to be able to design and construct solar cars. As with other resources...
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Arduino Blink Challenge
Emerging engineers read about Arduino software and how it can be used. Then they follow a nine-step tutorial to connect an Arduino board to a computer and put it to work! The objective is to code a program that will cause an LED to...
Curated OER
Electricity and Food: From Glowing Pickles in Citrus Batteries
Fifth graders explore electrical concepts and host a guest speaker. This instructional activity sets up guidelines for students to follow when they have a guest speaker. Students are primed to become actively involved in a lecture or...
Bonneville
Activities and Assessment of Vocabulary and Units
It's pass or fail, and one must pass to move on to the next instructional activity—no pressure. The second of seven installments in the Off the Grid unit has pupils demonstrate their knowledge of vocabulary as well as the process of...
Curated OER
Rectifier Circuits
In this physics worksheet, students complete 17 short answer questions about rectifier circuits. They use the test equipment to check their answers.
Trash For Teaching
The Light-House Project
Groups work together to design a lighthouse, from designing and drawing the wiring diagram, to creating prototypes of the switch and circuit, to envisioning and building a scale model along with a blueprint. By including different...
Teach Engineering
Powering a Device Using Food
Eat up a resource on using food to power electrical devices. Future engineers first experiment with different fruits and vegetables to determine the amount of electrical energy they provide. Based on the data, they design and create an...
TryEngineering
Arduino Blink Challenge
Who knew turning a light on and off could be so complicated? In the lesson plan, pupils use Arduino boards to learn about computer codes and programs. They program an Arduino to make a light turn on and off at certain time intervals.
Exploratorium
Traveling Networks
Show your class the path to understanding graph theory. Scholars learn about basic graph theory using an activity based on the Bridges of Konigberg problem. They draw networks on the playground and decide whether it is possible to travel...
Curated OER
Circuit Training Surprise
Students move around the gym to music, and when the music stops, they sit on a balloon. Inside each balloon are directions for another physical activity students should do.
Curated OER
Series and Parallel Circuits
Students study simple circuits. After a demonstration of parallel and serial circuit designs, students work in teams to predict the difference between two circuit designs. They build examples of two different circuits and test...
DiscoverE
Hidden Alarm
It's time to wake up! Young engineers build an electric circuit that will activate an alarm. The use of switches in the circuit is a must—because you don't want the alarm to keep beeping forever!
DiscoverE
Oranges and Batteries
Orange you glad you can make circuits using fruit? Young electricians learn about electric circuits and electricity. As part of the lesson, they build a circuit with an orange and then with a banana.
Cornell University
Characterizing a Solar Cell
Young classes are sure to get a charge out of this lesson! Learners experiment with circuits of a solar cell. They practice determining current, voltage, and power for the circuit and maximize the voltage and current of the cell.