14 Current of Electricity

22 February

Videos on Series and Parallel Bulbs

14 Current of Electricity, IP4 12 DC Circuits, IP4 13 Practical Electricity 0 Comments

These are two videos that I made on series and parallel bulbs. The second video is specially made to highlight the increase in brightness of the remaining bulbs when one or more bulbs is removed from its socket.

What students will learn in O levels is that the brightness of the bulbs will not change as the potential difference is a constant, being the emf itself.

Based on the conflict between what is taught and what is observed, students will be led to discuss the reason why.

If anyone is interested in getting the demonstration kit, do check out Funlearners.com.

12 September

How to survive a lightning strike

Seng Kwang Tan 14 Current of Electricity, Blog, IP4 10 Static Electricity, IP4 11 Current Electricity 0 Comments

This is an interesting question on electricity: in order to survive a lightning strike, which of the following costumes offer the best protection? A coat of armour, your birthday suit, a wetsuit or a superman costume? Watch this MinuteEarth video on Faraday’s cage to find out!

30 April

Squishy Circuits

Seng Kwang Tan 14 Current of Electricity, IP4 11 Current Electricity, Teaching Resources 0 Comments

image taken from http://courseweb.stthomas.edu/apthomas/SquishyCircuits/howTo.htm

I came across this Ted video on Squishy Circuits, presented by AnnMarie Thomas from the University of St Thomas and found it to be a suitable activity for kids. I shall attempt to make some when I am free with instructions from the following site:

http://courseweb.stthomas.edu/apthomas/SquishyCircuits/index.htm

Be sure to watch this page for photos and videos!

As I was contemplating the potential of combining conductive and insulating dough to make fun toys with the help of electric motors and the learning that can come from it. Apart from the obvious learning related to electrical resistance and current, we can even learn about flotation and fluid dynamics by building floating boats of different hull shapes.