While electricity is central to our daily lives, it remains “black box” technology to most students. They know that electricity is produced somewhere and that it costs money, but they do not have personal experience with the operation and scale of the machines that provide it. Fortunately, electricity generation can be added to the more basic circuit topics (series, parallel, current, voltage, etc.) with only a small investment in equipment. Providing students with hands-on experience with small power sources will help them make wise decisions about electricity.
REFERENCES
1.
These articles describe how to light an LED using electrochemical cells:
Matthew
Ruschmann
, “Penny-powered LED
,” Make Magazine
7
, 17
(2006
);Adam
Niculescu
and Peter
Martin
, “Making and evaluating an electrical battery
,” Phys. Teach.
44
, 343
–347
(Sept. 2006
).2.
David T.
Kagan
and Robert
Keith
, “Building a cheap simple generator
,” Phys. Teach.
37
, 248
–249
(April 1999
); http://www.miniscience.com/projects/KITWG/index.html; http://www.amasci.com/amateur/coilgen.html; http://www.re-energy.ca/t-i_waterbuild-1.shtml; http://www.ase.org/uploaded_files/educatorlessonplans/hydropower.pdf.
This content is only available via PDF.
© 2009 American Association of Physics Teachers.
2009
American Association of Physics Teachers
AAPT members receive access to The Physics Teacher and the American Journal of Physics as a member benefit. To learn more about this member benefit and becoming an AAPT member, visit the Joining AAPT page.