Batteries, Bulbs, and Wires
Standard(s) Addressed: Physical Science
Students know sources of stored energy take many forms, such as food, fuel, and batteries.
Students know energy can be carried from one place to another by waves, such as water waves
and sound waves, by electric current, and by moving objects.
Electricity and magnetism are related effects that have many useful applications in everyday life.
As a basis for understanding this concept:
a. Students know how to design and build simple series and parallel circuits by
using components such as wires, batteries, and bulbs.
Students know electrically charged objects attract or repel each other.
Students know electrical energy can be converted to heat, light, and motion.
Lesson Objective: Students will understand that batteries produce electrons and these travel
along a wire from the negative terminal to the positive terminal of a battery. They will learn that
there are two contact points on a light bulb and that, for the bulb to light, they must create a
complete path for the electrons to move from the negative terminal of the battery along the wire
through the light bulb to the positive terminal of the battery. They will use batteries, bulbs, and
wires as they work in pairs.
Materials:
Flashlight bulbs, C or D batteries, and 8 inch lengths of aluminum foil folded into narrow strips,
white boards with markers and erasers, cards with electrons (e -) for role play
Student Talk Strategies:


Think-Pair-Share
Inside-Outside Circle
Classroom Management: CHAMPs
Conversation: Students may talk to each other in inside voices, except during the probe when
they work in silence alone. Help: They will help each other and, if they need help, one student
will raise his/her hand quietly to let teacher know. Activity: Students will find the lowest
number of wires to light the bulb. Then students will work in pairs to find 4 ways to light the
light bulb. They will work at their desks. Movement: One student will get the materials.
Students will be able to stand away from their desks during Inside-Outside Circle.
Participation: Students will work cooperatively with both of them handling the materials.
Lesson adapted from Keeley, P. , Eberle, F., & Dorsey, C. (2008). Uncovering Student Ideas
in Science (Vol 3). Arlington, VA: NSTA Press.
ENGAGE: Connect to Prior Knowledge and Experience, Create Emotionally Safe
Learning Environment, Preview New Vocabulary
Estimated time:10 minutes
Teacher’s Role
Teacher Questions
Students’ Role
Teacher administers Probe 7:
Batteries, Bulbs, and Wires to
determine what students know
about electrical circuits.
Teacher walks around the
room and reads student
responses quietly without
talking to students. In
particular, teacher looks at
students’ drawings for insight
into student thinking.
From probe: What is the
smallest number of wire strips
Kirsten needs to make the
bulb light up?
Students respond individually
without talking to an elbow
partner.
Students may answer: Two
wires—both coming from the
bottom of the battery to the
bulb (clash model).
Or
One wire—coming from the
bottom of the battery to the
bulb (with no contact with the
top of the battery)
Naïve Conception: If wires
are connected to a battery and
bulb, no matter where, a
complete circuit is made.
EXPLORE: Hands-On Learning, Contextualize Language, Use of Scaffolding (Graphic
Organizers, Thinking Maps, Cooperative Learning), Use of Multiple Intelligences, Check for
Understanding
Estimated time: 30 minutes
Teacher’s Role
Teacher Questions
Students’ Role
1. Teacher tells students that
they will now test out their
answer on the probe. They
will use a battery, one bulb,
and strips of wire to find the
least number of wires it takes
to light the bulb.
1. Now you will test out your
prediction on the probe. Try
the number of wires you gave
in your response.
1. Students work in pairs and
discuss their responses with
each other. They then test their
predictions with the materials
to actually make a complete
circuit.
2. Teacher asks students to
report out the least number of
strips they used to make the
bulb light.
2. Can you make the bulb light 2. They discuss their ideas and
with fewer strips?
explanations with their
partner. Think, Pair, Share.
Think, Pair, Share: Share your They show their arrangement
ideas with the person next to
for fewer wires on their white
you and report to class.
boards and display these for
the class to see.
Teacher calls on a group with
the correct arrangement to
show theirs to the class.
3. The teacher then has every
team build a circuit using 1
battery, 1 bulb, and 1 wire.
Teacher may ask the teams
who have shown 1 wire to
They record their set-up and
ideas in their notebooks.
3. Now that you have seen
this arrangement, show me
that you can build one too.
3. Pairs show the teacher the
arrangement with 1 battery, 1
bulb, and 1 wire.
walk around the room to help
the others. Teacher walks
around the room to verify
student understanding.
4. Given a 1.5 V C or D
battery, 1 bulb and 1 strip of
aluminum foil, teacher asks
students to now arrange the
materials to make 4 complete,
different circuits.
4. Now that you know how to
make the bulb light with one
strip, I have a challenge for
you. Can you find 4 different
arrangements using only 1
battery, 1 bulb, and 1 strip to
make the bulb light?
4. Pairs use the materials to
find the 4 different
arrangements and record in
their notebooks in a T-chart
which arrangements caused
the bulb to light and which
arrangements caused the bulb
to not light.
EXPLAIN: Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing to Communicate Conceptual
Understanding
Estimated time: 20 minutes
Teacher’s Role
Teacher Questions
Students’ Role
1. Teacher asks students to
draw successful arrangements
on their white boards.
Teacher then asks selected
groups to show their different
arrangements to the class and
to explain the path from the
battery through the bulb back
to the battery.
1. What arrangements light the 1. Groups record their
bulb?
drawings and statements on
white boards and share with
the large group.
2. Teacher takes out larger
clear bulbs for students to
view.
2. Now I am going to give you
a clear bulb. Be careful. It is
made of glass. In your
notebooks, sketch carefully,
with detail, what you see.
3. As teacher moves from
group to group, teacher asks
students to look carefully at
the base of the bulb.
3. What do you see here on the 3. A bump.
base?
What is attached on the inside
to that “bump”?
The wire that is inside the bulb
4. After having a conversation
with each group, the teacher
calls the students back
together to discuss the 2
contact points in the base of
the light bulb.
4. Based on what you have
seen in these first tests, what
statement or statements can
you make about what is
needed to light a bulb?
Teacher asks other students to
ADD ON (one of the
4. a battery, a wire, and a bulb
2. Students now work in
groups of 4 to look at the clear
bulb and draw in their
notebooks what they see.
the two contact points have to
be part of the path
5. Teacher shows the Bill Nye
“Electricity” DVD to show
direct current (DC) then tells
students they are going to act
out what is happening with
these circuits. Teacher asks
some of the students to line up
in a straight line. They are
electrons in a wire.
6. After role play, teacher
checks for student
understanding. Teacher
sketches what the students
offer for a complete circuit.
productive talk moves).
5. Each of you is going to be
an electron, a tiny negatively
charged particle that is in
wires and metals and in the
battery. On my signal one
electron is going to jump out
of the battery and the next
electron is going to move
away. The next electron is
also going to move away and
so on.
6. What conditions are
necessary for a circuit to be
completed?
Teacher uses REASONING
(one of the productive talk
moves) to support student
learning.
5. Students act as electrons
moving in a complete circuit
from the battery through the
bulb back to the battery.
6. a source of electrons
(battery), something to help
the electrons move (wire),
something to use the energy of
the moving electrons (bulb)
EVALUATE: Thinking Maps, Summarize Lesson and Review Vocabulary, Variety of
Assessment Tools, Games to Show Understanding
Teacher’s Role
Teacher Questions
Teacher checks for
understanding by asking
questions, looking at
responses, and looking at
student responses in
notebooks.
Estimated time: 10 minutes
Students’ Role
Students revisit their probes
and decide whether they want
to change their answer. They
cross out any incorrect
responses. DO NOT ERASE.
I am going to show you some
pictures of batteries, wires,
and bulbs and you are going to
choose one and use it for
Inside-Outside Circle.
Students count off 1-2, 1-2,..
The 1s are Inside and will
choose an arrangement that is
unsuccessful. The 2s are
Outside and they choose a
successful arrangement.
Students receive a sheet of
arrangements of wires,
batteries and bulbs. They look
at each drawing and make
decisions about whether the
drawing represents a complete
circuit and whether the bulb
will light. In Inside-Outside
Circle, they will use the
following sentence frame.
1s: This arrangement is
missing some of the three
things for a circuit:
,
and
,
2s: This arrangement shows
the three things for a complete
circuit:
,
, and
.
EXTEND: Group Projects, Plays, Murals, Songs, Connections to Real World, Connections
to Other Curricular Areas
Estimated time: 5 minutes
Teacher’s Role
Teacher Questions
Students’ Role
Teacher leads the students in
singing “The Circuit Song”.
We are now going to sing a
song related to our
investigation.
Students sing the “Circuit
Song”.
Teacher asks students to go
home to look at items that use
electricity there. Make a note
of the items that use batteries
(direct current).
Student Talk Strategies
Adapted from Avenues, Hampton Brown, 2007.
Circuit Song
[to the tune of A-Tisket, A-Tasket]
Pam Brusic, NMUSD
A circuit, a circuit,
A circuit’s like a circle—
It must be connected all around
In order to do work.
A circuit, a circuit,
A circuit needs a source—
A negative terminal, positive, too,
In order to do work.
A circuit, a circuit,
A circuit needs conductors—
Conductors carry the electrical flow
In order to do work.
A circuit, a circuit,
A circuit has a resistor—
It gives off light, sound, heat or moves—
It’s the part that does the work.
A circuit, a circuit,
An e-lec-tri-cal circuit—
Electricity flows from the source and back
In order to do work.
Batteries, Bulbs, and Wires
(Student Recording Sheet as a model for what students should write in their notebooks)
Task 1.
Draw an arrangement of 1 battery and 1 bulb that uses the fewest number of
wires.
galileo.phys.virginia.edu
Task 2. Challenge. Find 4 Ways to Light a Bulb.
Data Table:
4 arrangements that cause the bulb to light
Arrangements that cause the bulb to not
light
Task 3.
Sketch (draw) details of the clear light bulb. Make the image large. Fill this
space.
Meaning Making:
What did you see when you made a complete electric circuit?
Claims and Evidence: (adapted from California Reading and Literature
Project “Focused Approach”
Beginning:
Students use one word responses to name the parts of a complete circuit as the teacher points to
them. Or students point to the part of the circuit that the teacher names.
Early Intermediate:
We need three things for a circuit:
Intermediate:
The arrangements that lit the bulb all had
.
Early Advanced:
,
, and
.
,
, and
The light bulb lit when I
but the arrangements that did not light the bulb
.
.
Advanced:
Since I
.
, the light bulb
Home School Connection
At home, find all the objects that use batteries. These use direct current. Be prepared to show
the complete path in the circuit.
List the objects here.
Draw the objects here.
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http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/circuits/u9l2b.cfm
http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/circuits/u9l2b.cfm