Phenomena: A Power Outage
The anchoring event, a power outage, should be a relatively common experience among our students. It is important to start with their own experiences, asking them to share out about their experience with a power outage. This unit uses the Texas Power Outage of 2021 as it’s anchoring event.
Learning Goals:
- Students will be able explain how simple circuits work using concepts of potential difference/voltage, current, and resistance.
- Students will create a model of how electricity works within our power grid including power plants, power lines, transformers, and electrical outlets.
- Students will be able to demonstrate the concept of electromagnetism through an electromagnet, motor, and generator.
Materials List
Handouts
- Initial Model: Power Outage
- Understanding Electric Potential
- MIT Circuit Challenge
- Simulation Series and Parallel Circuits
- PowerGrid WebQuest
- Motors and Generators
- Cost of Electricity
- Power Plant Engineering Project
- Power Plant Research Project
- Colony on Mars Model
Classroom Supplies
- Scotch tape
- Balloons
- Small pieces of paper (i.e. hole punches)
- Van de Graaff Generator
- Rabbit fur
- Foil
- Small bulbs
- Batteries
- Wires
- Nails
- Insulated copper wire
- Wires with alligator clips
- Small compasses
- Small magnets
- Paperclips
- World’s Simplest Motor (example)
- Multimeters
- Hand crank generators (example)
Important Links
- Lesson Plan
- Slides: Anchoring Event Presentation: The Texas Power Outage 2021
- Slides: Demonstration: Electostatics
- PhET: Balloons and Static Electricity
- Video: Should a Person Touch 200,000 Volts? A Van de Graaff generator experiment!
- PhET: Electric Field Hockey
- PhET: Charges and Fields
- Concept Builder: Know Your Potential
- Video: MIT graduates cannot power a light bulb with a battery
- PhET: Circuit Construction Kit: DC
- Crack the Circuit Game
- Slides: Lecture Electricity
- Slides: Webquest The PowerGrid
- Video: How does an Electric Motor work? (DC Motor)
- Slides: Lecture Electromagnetism
- Student Work Examples: Colony on Mars Model
- Lesson origin on Ambitious Science Teaching
Next Generation Science Standards
Next Generation Science Standards
- HS-PS2-4 Use mathematical representations of Newton’s Law of Gravitation and Coulomb’s Law to describe and predict the gravitational and electrostatic forces between objects.
- HS-PS2-5 Plan and conduct an investigation to provide evidence that an electric current can produce a magnetic field and that a changing magnetic field can produce an electric current.
- HS-PS3-3 Design, build, and refine a device that works within given constraints to convert one form of energy into another form of energy.
- HS-PS3-5 Develop and use a model of two objects interacting through electric or magnetic fields to illustrate the forces between objects and the changes in energy of the objects due to the interaction.
- HS-ESS3-2 Evaluate competing design solutions for developing, managing, and utilizing energy and mineral resources based on cost-benefit ratios.
- HS-ESS3-4 Evaluate or refine a technological solution that reduces impacts of human activities on natural systems.
- HS-ETS1-2 Design a solution to a complex real-world problem by breaking it down into smaller, more manageable problems that can be solved through engineering.
- HS-ETS1-3 Evaluate a solution to a complex real-world problem based on prioritized criteria and trade-offs that account for a range of constraints, including cost, safety, reliability, and aesthetics as well as possible social, cultural, and environmental impacts.