NEW 2015 RESOURCES
Below are the CLN "Theme Pages" that support the study of electricity and magnetism. CLN's theme pages are collections of useful Internet educational resources within a narrow curricular topic and contain links to two types of information. Students and teachers will find curricular resources (information, content...) to help them learn about this topic. In addition, there are links to instructional materials (lesson plans), which will help teachers provide instruction in this theme.
Here are a number of links to other Internet resources that contain information and/or other links related to the concepts of electricity. Please read our disclaimer.
-
AC/DC
what's the Difference
- A PBS website that uses animation and simple explanations as an introduction
to the principles of electricity.
- Articles
on "Electricity"
- The author of this site has many articles that describe and discuss a number
of interesting electricity related concepts. Some of the articles present
information on topics such as: common misconceptions of electricity, what
is electricity, lightning, static electricity, and more. Also included on
this page are plans for more than fifteen simple electrical devices.
- AskERIC
Lesson Plans: Physical Sciences
- The link is to AskEric's Physical Science page, if you wish to browse/search
their site yourself. Or, use the links below to go directly to some lesson
plans specifically about electricity/magnetism.
- Attracting
Balloons Static electricity for intermediate students.
- Brown
Bag Science This lesson plan, designed for grade 1-5 students, will
help learners investigate and understand the concept of electricity. Students
draw and construct simple circuits using the vocabulary associated with
electricity.
- Static Electricity Intermediate students use an inquiry method to learn about static electricity.
- Attracting
Balloons Static electricity for intermediate students.
- [The]
Atoms Family
- Designed for K-8 students, this site uses the "The Adams Family" characters
as metaphors. For broad topics related to electricity including: kinetic and
potential energy; atoms and matter; conservation and energy transfer; and
light, waves and particles. The following link is direct to their pages on
electricity.
- Frankenstein's Lightning Laboratory Here's a page on electrical safety and two electricity experiments.)
- Bizarre
Stuff You Can Make In Your Kitchen
- This site is an ever growing warehouse of the kinds of projects some of
the more demented of us tried as young people, collecting in one place many
of the classic, simple science projects that have become part of the collective
lore of amateur science. It is a sort of warped semi-scientific cookbook of
tricks, gimmicks, and pointless experimentation, concoctions, and devices,
using, for the most part, things found around the house. These are the classics.
Strange goo, radios made from rusty razor blades, crystal gardens... amateur
mad scientist stuff. If you happen to learn something in the process, consider
yourself a better person for it.
- [The]
Electric Pickle
- By using electricity in an experiment, this site shows the "how to and why"
the phenomenon of the glowing pickle occurs.
- Electricity
and Magnetism
- More than a dozen experiments on electricity and magnetism designed for
intermediate students.
- Elements
of AC Electricity
- A collection of tutorials presenting a wide range of topics in electricity.
These topics include: AC Waveform, Inductance, Inductor Circuits, Direct-Current
RL Circuits, Inductive Reactance, and many more.
- Just
For Kids
- This site has information about electricity and safety, energy and water
experiment, games, and links to other exciting Websites.
- Physical
Science Activity Manual
- This Manual contains 34 hands-on activities that can be downloaded in either
MAC (MS WORD) or Windows (WordPerfect) versions. Individual chapters may be
downloaded by clicking the appropriate version beside the title.
- Learning
About Renewable Energy
- Consumer Energy Information Fact Sheet; a complete dissertation from the
U.S. Dept. of Energy about renewable energy sources. The site has a glossary
and links to other sites for more information.
- Power
Failure
- In this lesson plan, grade 5 students learn about the importance of electricity
to societies in the world by using the Internet to collect data from keypals.
- Project
PHYSLab
- Project PHYSLab has a collection of high school physics labs (including
some for Electricity) developed by participants in an annual, three-week workshop.
This link is to the home page of the project. From there, enter "Labs Available
Online" to find the labs. Since each of these is done by a different teacher,
the quality of the lab and the detail associated with it will vary.
- Science
Lab
- Here's a collection of science experiments that explore various physics
concepts within the oil industry. Experiments have a teacher's guide and can
be related to informational articles within the site's "Science Watch." Electricity-related
experiments are Building an Electrical Logging Tool and the Electrical Resistivity
of Materials.
- Smile
Program Physics Index
- Teachers participating in the SMILE (Science and Mathematics Initiative
for Learning Enhancement) summer session programs each create a single concept
lesson plan. This database has over 30 lesson plans in their section on Electricity
and Magnetism. Caution: Since there is a wide number of authors who have contributed
to the database, the detail and quality of the lesson plans will vary.
- Snacks
about Electricity
- "Snacks" from the Exploratorium are miniature science exhibits that teachers
can make using common, inexpensive, easily available materials. This page
has about a dozen activities/experiments on electricity.
- Static
Electricity Page
- A Website full of projects, articles and forums about static electricity.
- Theater
of Electricity
- Using a Van de Graaff generator as a source of electricity, the site has
a number of pages demonstrating some of the behavior of electricity. The generator
creates static electricity and is studied in different experiments simulating
lightning. After viewing the site, you can interact with a lightning safety
quiz. The following link is to the site's collection of lesson activities.
- Activities to Explore Static Electricity More than five comprehensive lesson activities and a page of background information for teachers.
- Virtual
Labs and Simulations
- Here's a collection of links to sites on the Web that have computerized
simulations of physics principles that allow students to see a visual demonstration
of a scientific concept, often in animated form. In addition, the student
may be given the opportunity to manipulate one or more variables underlying
the concept and then witness the changes. There are about 30 labs/simulations
in electricity. Labs cover topics in Ohm's law, circuits, Kirchhoff, resistors,
measurement, charge, force, field, and more.
- "Watt's"
on Your Mind
- Help Dr. Frank N. Stein bring the monster to life by having students participate
in the interactive game. A great site for elementary grades about wasting
energy.
- Watts
Up With the Heat?
- In this lesson plan, grade 6-12 students "create a variety of simple, series,
and parallel electrical circuits to illustrate how electricity flows through
different types of basic circuits and to understand the practical applications
of these types of circuits. Students then apply their knowledge of electrical
circuits to the loss of power in the midst of July 1999's heat wave, determining
how electrical power systems fail in extreme heat, how "load shedding" is
used to reduce strain on power sources, and how power outages can be prevented
in the future." They use a New York Times article as a starting point for
their explorations.
- What
is Static Electricity?
- Static electricity is described in terms of atoms, electrical charges, conservation of charge, and Coulomb's Law. Designed with middle and high-school students in mind, the "I CAN READ" section is for students with low reading skills. The page includes four hands-on projects teachers can try with their students.
Note: The sites listed above will serve as a source of curricular content in Electricity (Concepts). For other resources in Science (e.g., curricular content in Earth Science, General Science, Life Science, or Physical Science), or for lesson plans and theme pages, click the "previous screen" button below. Or, click here if you wish to return directly to the CLN menu, which will give you access to educational resources in all of our subjects.
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