Electrical Circuits and Interactive Notebook Ideas
Students will learn about current electricity in this unit. Students will make an electrical circuit and learn the difference between a closed circuit and an open circuit. They will learn how to make an electrical switch using STEM engineering skills. They will learn about conductors and insulators. Includes reading passages on current electricity. This 4th-grade hands-on science unit comes complete with five 5 E Inquiry-based lessons, flaps, and folds for interactive notebooks, response pages, and an informational text article on current electricity. For this inquiry lesson, the students were given a battery, two wires, and a light bulb and told to make the bulb light. They tried several things and had to work together but eventually made it light and were able to draw a diagram explaining the process.
The vocabulary was developed based on experience.
Students followed up by finding their own conductors and insulators.
This unit is aligned with NGSS for 4th grade
NGSS 4-PS3-2. Make observations to provide evidence that energy can be transferred from place to place by sound, light, heat, and
electric currents.
NGSS 4-PS3-4. Apply scientific ideas to design, test, and refine a device that converts energy from one form to another
NGSS 3-5-ETS1-3. Plan and carry out fair tests in which variables are controlled and failure points are considered to identify
aspects of a model or prototype that can be improved.
Also aligned with Utah SEEd
Utah SEEd 4.2.3
Plan and carry out an investigation to gather evidence from observations that energy can be transferred from place to place by sound, light, heat, and electrical currents. Examples could include sound causing objects to vibrate and electric currents being used to produce moon or light.
Utah SEEd 4.2.4
Apply scientific ideas to design a solution that converts energy from one form to another. Define the problem, identify criteria and constraints, develop a prototype for iterative testing, analyze data from testing, and propose modifications for optimizing the solution.
Want to see another great activity for circuit electricity? Try Copper Tape Circuits.
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