Lesson Title: Circuit Diagrams
Curriculum Area: Science
Technology Strand: Multimedia/Presentation
Grade Level: 4
 
Essential Question: How are parallel and series circuits different?
 
A Activity Summary In this activity, students will design different parallel and series circuits. They will then challenge their classmates to guess which type of circuit they have created.
C Curriculum Science
3.07 Observe and investigate that parallel and series circuits have different characteristics.
T Technology Multimedia/Presentation
1.11 Identify and discuss the use of multimedia tools to report content areainformation.  
 
Activating Strategies
In the Hot Seat

Purpose: To motivate student learning

Description: In this activity, several students will be asked to sit in the "Hot Seat" and answer questions related to the topic of study.

Procedure:
  1. Open up HotSeat file and print off questions. The file is listed below and labeled HotSeat.doc
  2. Cut out questions and tape them to the bottom of several chairs around the room.
  3. At the start of the class, inform students that several of them are sitting on "Hot Seats" and will be asked to answer questions related to the topic of study for the day.
  4. Have students check their desks/chairs for the strategically placed questions.
  5. Students who have questions will then take turns reading the question and attempting to provide an answer. Due to the nature of this motivational activity, these should be questions that students are able to answer.
 
Technology Vocabulary: Multimedia Vocabulary
Detailed Technology Instructions:
 
Cognitive Teaching Strategies
  1. Open up the file CircuitAS.doc. Print and run copies for students.
  2. Open up the Circuits.ppt. Review the sample diagram and the student instructions.
  3. In the computer lab, pull up the Circuit.ppt on all the computers so they are ready to go when students come into class.
  4. After completing the Hot Seat Activity, project the sample diagram onto a screen or TV. Show students how to copy the source, load, and switch symbols and move them around the slide. Show them how to draw lines connecting these.
  5. Allow students to begin creating their own slides.
  6. When students are done with slides, hand out the Circuit Answer Sheets (circuitAS.doc). Have students move around the room and decide whether each diagram is series or parallel.
  7. When students have seen all the diagrams, have each student tell the types of circuits they created.
 
Summary Strategies
Exit Slips (also called One Sentence Summaries)

Purpose: To engage students in summarizing their learning

Description: Using this strategy, students will synthesize learned information, skills, and processes by writing an Exit Slip. An Exit Slip can be a One Sentence Summary of what students learned or can be used in a variety of other ways. Other uses are: to answer a review question, to pose a question related to the topic studied, to make a short list of facts learned, to set a learning goal for the next day, etc.

Procedure:

In the last five minutes of class have students draw one of the following diagrams.
1. A series circuit with one source, three loads and one switch.
2. A parallel circuit with one source, three loads and one switch.

Have students label the diagram as series or parallel.
 
Resources
Click for directions on how to download files on a Windows computer. 
Microsoft Power Point Files
circuits.ppt
series-parallel.ppt

Microsoft Word Files
circuitAS.doc
HotSeat.doc
 
 
Re-teaching and Enrichment Activities
If students were unable to distinguish between series and parallel after this activity, one possible reteaching tool would be to use teacher prepared diagrams for students to practice with. Examples are show as file Series-Parallel.ppt. These could be printed out or students could use them on the computer. The idea here is to show two diagrams that are very similar. On the one difference in the diagrams is the difference between series and parallel.

An enrichment activity would be to have kids return to their diagrams and create questions about the diagrams. For example, using the sample circuit diagram, students might make up a question like "Which loads will work if switch B is turned off?" Students could add these to their diagrams with a text box and then students could once again move around the room and try to answer their classmates questions.

The concept for this lesson plan was submitted by 
Ed  Whiteheart
Kiser Middle, Data last modified: 12/24/2006