ELECTRIC FIELD AND FORCE
Markus Artner
BG Neunkirchen
Electric field and force
Markus Artner
BG Neunkirchen
Educational Pathway
Introduction
 Short Description:
 Students will find out about electric forces in easy set up
experiment.
 A museums visit will enable students to have an idea of what
kind of electric phenomena nature can bring up
 Students study phenomena by observing simulations and videos
 Age range: 15-16 years old

Context: School, museum
 Time required: approx. 5-7 lessons
 Connection with the curriculum: electric force, coulombs law,
electrostatic phenomena
Electric field and force
Markus Artner
BG Neunkirchen
Educational Pathway
Eliciting Curiosity – pre visit phase 1
 How can a scrap of paper on a table be lifted without
touching it?
 The scrap can be lifted by using frictional electricity
of a charged ruler
 A balloon is prepared as being charged by frictional
electricity and attached to the glass of the window. As
it stays there some questions will appear:
 what kind of force makes the balloon being fixed?
 Students have to find the similarity to the first
experiment
Electric field and force
Markus Artner
BG Neunkirchen
Educational Pathway
Questions Eliciting Activities – pre visit phase 1
Define questions from current knowledge
 What do we know about charge
 Who found out characteristics about
charged and defined them (historical
background)?
Material
Markus Artner
BG Neunkirchen
Electric field and force
Educational Pathway
Questions Eliciting Activities – pre visit phase 1
Define questions from current knowledge
 What kind of forces do we already know? Where
do those forces come from?
 One of those forces are caused by electric
charge: what forces appear with 2 like charges
and 2 unlike charges?
 What happens to charges in conductive
material and what to those in insulators?
Material
Electric field and force
Markus Artner
BG Neunkirchen
Educational Pathway
Pre Visit –Phase 2: Active Investigation –
PROPOSE PRELIMINARY EXPLANATION OR HYPOTHESES
 How can we set up an easy experiment to measure
and compare charge?
Get some ideas from current knowledge: in everyday
life anyone knows charges are "produced" by taking off
woole textiles or similar.
 Find out how to "produce" electric charged objects
 Find out forces that appear
Electric field and force
Markus Artner
BG Neunkirchen
Educational Pathway
Pre Visit –Phase 2: plan simple investigation
Build your own electroscope
• Using simple
devices to
explore electric
field strenght
• Development of
scientific models
for measuring
Balloon, can and foil
Charged balloons
Electric field and force
Markus Artner
BG Neunkirchen
Educational Pathway
Pre Visit –Phase 2: propose preliminary
hypothesis
 Identification of possible misconceptions associated
to electricity. Some could be:
 Electric charged objects attract because of magnetic force:
This can easily be disproved by simple experiments
 Protons move from object to object: Misconception
associated to the structure of matter: This would need a
deeper repeating of matter-theory
Electric force increases and decreases direct proportionally
to distance. This misconception can be used to start
investigation by the help of electric field animation
Markus Artner
BG Neunkirchen
Electric field and force
Educational Pathway
Pre Visit –Phase 2: Observation:
Electric field simulation
• View field line grid
• analyze influence of
additional charged particles
• measure forces and
strength
• View forces as vector graphs
Animation
Electric field and force
Markus Artner
BG Neunkirchen
Educational Pathway
Pre Visit –Phase 2: Observation:
Charges and field simulation
• View field line grid
• analyze influence of
additional charged particles
• measure forces and
strength
• View forces as vector graphs
Markus Artner
BG Neunkirchen
Electric field and force
Educational Pathway
Pre Visit –Phase 2: Investigation:
How does electric force depend from
distance and charge?
• Use of worksheet
• Analyze different charges
• Analyze different distances
• Measure field strenght
• Protocol measurements and
report
worksheet
Electric field and force
Markus Artner
BG Neunkirchen
Educational Pathway
Pre Visit –Phase 2: Observation:
Play electric field hockey
 Try to reach the goal
 Mind the attracting and
repelling force
 Try to use as less charge
as possible
start game
material
Electric field and force
Markus Artner
BG Neunkirchen
Educational Pathway
Visit - Phase 3
Creation – GATHER EVIDENCE FROM OBSERVATION
 The high voltage room at the technical museum
in Vienna
 Observe experiments showing the impact of high
voltage electric fields
 Observe the tesla coile and emerging flashovers
http://www.tmw.at/default.asp?id=216&al=deutsch
Electric field and force
Markus Artner
BG Neunkirchen
Educational Pathway
Visit - Phase 3
Creation – GATHER EVIDENCE FROM OBSERVATION
Students observe
phenomena of high
voltage
Students observe
emerging flashovers
that appear at the
tesla coil
http://www.tmw.at/default.asp?id=216&al=deutsch
Electric field and force
Markus Artner
BG Neunkirchen
Educational Pathway
Visit - Teaching Phase 4
Discussion – Explanation based on evidence
 What could be a possible explanation for lightening in nature
 The teacher points out that earth and clouds carry a huge
amount of charge.
 Students discuss how can the charge of clouds be produced.
Electric field and force
Markus Artner
BG Neunkirchen
Educational Pathway
Visit - Teaching Phase 4
Discussion – consider and observe explanations based
on animations: moving icy and fluid particles in clouds
Electric field and force
Educational Pathway
Visit - Teaching Phase 4
Discussion – Explanation based on evidence
 How do electric fields take influence on our life
 Considering: high voltage lines, electric plugs
 What could be an explanation for lightening
http://www.tmw.at/default.asp?id=216&al=deutsch
Markus Artner
BG Neunkirchen
Markus Artner
BG Neunkirchen
Electric field and force
Educational Pathway
Analyzing – post visit Teaching phase 5:
communicate observations and explanations
 What do we know about electric phenomena in
everyday life and how can we know there are electric
fields?
 Students are asked to make reports of observation
 Students are enforced to start the coulombe-quiz
start quiz
 How does earths and atmospheres electricity work
out?
 working out explanations for the phenomena
 Students work out presentation using material
from the web
 Discuss presentations and findings
material