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Home Concept Builders Electric Circuits

Concept Builders - Electric Circuits

A Concept-Builder is an interactive questioning module that presents learners with carefully crafted questions that target various aspects of a concept. Each Concept Builder focuses the learner's attention upon a discrete learning outcome. Questions target that outcome from a variety of angles using multiple difficulty levels or varying activities. The following Concept Builders target concepts in Electric Circuits.

Activities

Current

🞋︎ Learning Goal: To identify the direction of the current, to compare its value at various locations in a circuit, and to predict the effect of varying number of cells and bulbs upon the current.

Case Studies: Electric Power

🞋︎ Learning Goal: To use the relationship between electric power and the variables that affect it (current, resistance, and voltage) in order to compare the power of two simple circuits from given I, R, and ∆V information.

I = ∆V/R Equations as a Guide to Thinking

🞋︎ Learning Goal: To use voltage-current-resistance relationship to predict the effect of varying voltage and varying resistance upon the current in a circuit.

Know Your Potential

🞋︎ Learning Goal: To understand the concept of electric potential and to use the concept to predict which bulbs light in a complex circuit and to identify the electric potential value at various locations in a circuit.

Light Bulb Anatomy

🞋︎ Learning Goal: To identify the pathway that charge takes through a light bulb and to use that information to make specific bulbs in a circuit light.

Parallel Circuits - ∆V = I•R Calculations

🞋︎ Learning Goal: To use the ∆V = I•R equation to analyze a parallel circuit and determine voltage and current values at specific locations.

Resistance Ranking Tasks

🞋︎ Learning Goal: To rank the relative resistance of various wires based on information about the wire length and cross-sectional area.

Series Circuits - ∆V = I•R Calculations

🞋︎ Learning Goal: To use the ∆V = I•R equation to analyze a simple or a series circuit and mathematically relate a battery voltage, a current value, a resistance value, or a potential value.

Series vs. Parallel Circuits

🞋︎ Learning Goal: To distinguish between the characteristics of series and parallel circuits.

Which One Doesn't Belong? - Equivalent Resistance

🞋︎ Learning Goal: To analyze series and parallel circuits to determine their equivalent resistance and to compare its value to that of other circuits.