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Activity
Hunkins Experiments

Hunkin's Experiments: Electric Shocks!!

For Students 9th - 10th
Hunkin's Experiments is a group of simple cartoon illustrations of scientific principles. Some would work well in the classroom, but others have little value beyond entertaining students. All of the projects are easy to do. These...
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Lesson Plan
Alabama Learning Exchange

Alex: Wired for Learning

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
As part of a unit on electrical circuits, students will work in collaborative groups to create a video of how to construct parallel and series circuits. This lesson plan was created as a result of the Girls Engaged in Math and Science...
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Lesson Plan
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: How Does a Robot Work?

For Teachers 4th - 8th
This instructional activity 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...
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Handout
PBS

Pbs Kids: Design Squad Challenge: Dance Pad Mania (Pdf) [Pdf]

For Students 3rd - 8th
Hands-on challenge to build a dance pad that lets you use your feet to either flash a light or to sound a buzzer. Provides full list of materials with ideas on how to design, build, test, and redesign the pad if necessary. Activity...
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Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Potato Power

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Students use potatoes to light an LED clock (or light bulb) as they learn how a battery works in a simple circuit and how chemical energy changes to electrical energy. As they learn more about electrical energy, they better understand...
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Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Nxt Ball Shooter

For Teachers 4th - 8th
This activity helps students understand how a motor in a LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robot uses electricity produced by the battery to move a robot to do useful work in the form of throwing a ball. Students relate the concepts of electricity and...
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Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Pointing at Maximum Power for Pv

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Student teams measure voltage and current in order to determine the power output of a photovoltaic (PV) panel. They vary the resistance in a simple circuit connected to the panel to demonstrate the effects on voltage, current, and power...
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Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Dance Mania: Build Your Own Dance Pad!

For Students 3rd - 8th
The objective of this electricity and electronics science fair project is to build a dance pad that flashes lights when you step on it.
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Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Which Materials Are the Best Conductors?

For Students 3rd - 5th
There are two main types of materials when it comes to electricity, conductors, and insulators. What are they made of? Find out by testing different materials in a circuit to see which ones conduct the most electricity.
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Website
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Solar Cell Power Output vs. Temperature

For Students 6th - 8th
Solar cells provide a clean way of making electricity directly from sunlight. In this project you will build a simple circuit and experimental setup to investigate whether the power output of a solar cell changes with ambient temperature.
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Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Where There Is Charge, There Can Be Sparks!

For Students 9th - 10th
In this short science project you will learn how to build a capacitor using common household items. By testing different charge cycles, you will work to discover how much charge is stored in a Leyden jar capacitor.
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Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Waste Not, Want Not: Use the Microbial Fuel Cell to Create Elec

For Students 9th - 10th
Gross. What is that in the toilet? But maybe it's not just gross. Did you know there are bacteria that digest organic waste and create electrons? What if there was a way to collect those electrons to power a circuit? In this science fair...
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Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Build a Toy Workshop

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Working as if they are engineers who work for (the hypothetical) Build-a-Toy Workshop company, students apply their imaginations and the engineering design process to design and build prototype toys with moving parts. They set up...
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Article
Creative Science Centre

Creative Science Centre: Two Low Power Led Flashers

For Students 9th - 10th
Explains the design of two circuits that can flash an LED from a single 1.5V battery. A typical LED needs 2-3V to work properly and both these circuits include a voltage doubler to boost the voltage to drive the LED. Both circuits will...
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Lesson Plan
Science and Mathematics Initiative for Learning Enhancement (SMILE)

Smile: Simple Circuitry and Series Circuit

For Teachers 9th - 10th
A teacher lesson plan which could be easily converted into an idea for a student project or presentation. This page describes an activity in which the basic nature of a circuit and the concepts of a series circuit are investigated....
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Lesson Plan
Science and Mathematics Initiative for Learning Enhancement (SMILE)

Smile: Resistances in Series and Parallel Circuits

For Teachers 9th - 10th
A teacher lesson plan is provided here. This page describes two activities in which the effect of multiple resistors on the current and overall resistance of both series and parallel circuits are investigated. Complete activity...
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Unit Plan
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Energy Efficient Housing

For Teachers 9th - 10th
We all know that it takes energy to provide us with the basics of shelter: heating, cooling, lighting, electricity, sanitation and cooking. To create energy-efficient housing that is practical for people to use every day requires...
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Lesson Plan
Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Ornl: Teacher's Guide Superconductivity for High School Students

For Teachers 9th - 10th
This site from the Human Genome Project provides a large collection of facts and information, demonstrations, experiments and project ideas. Written for teachers but easily adaptable for any type of student work. A good site to check out...
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Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: The Power of Food

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Students imagine they are stranded on an island and must create the brightest light possible with the meager supplies they have on hand in order to gain the attention of a rescue airplane.
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Lesson Plan
Science and Mathematics Initiative for Learning Enhancement (SMILE)

Smile: Batteries and Bulbs

For Teachers 9th - 10th
For the teacher planning a lesson or for the student preparing for a project or presentation. This page describes an activity in which parallel and series circuits are constructed using batteries and bulbs. Complete activity directions...
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Lesson Plan
Science and Mathematics Initiative for Learning Enhancement (SMILE)

Smile: Ohm's Law

For Teachers 9th - 10th
For the teacher planning a lesson plan or for the student preparing for a project or presentation. This page describes a series of simple activities related to the voltage-current-resistance relationship.
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Graphic
Hunkins Experiments

Hunkin's Experiments: How to Make Oxygen From a Battery

For Students 5th - 9th
Hunkin's Experiments is a group of simple cartoon illustrations of scientific principles. Some would work well in the classroom, but others have little value beyond entertaining students. All of the projects are easy to do. This one...
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Activity
Maryland Science Center

Maryland Science Center: Happy Birthday, Harry Potter! [Pdf]

For Students 4th - 6th
Using your knowledge of electricity, learn how to make a 'magic' wand like Harry Potter's that will light up on your command.
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Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Hands on Activity: Designing a Thermostat

For Teachers 9th - 10th
By building a basic thermostat, students will explore basic circuitry and electricity. The thermostat built out of a breadboard, temperature sensor chip, amplifier, and battery creates a linear relationship between temperature of the...