This activity from the Institute of Physics discusses energy transfer in electric circuits and links this, by analogy, to other more familiar examples.

The activities include:
• demonstrations of human and lemon-powered batteries to illustrate that that there is nothing special about the chemical...

From the Institute of Physics, in this learning episode, students calculate electrical power and through discussion, review their understanding of: • current • potential difference • electromotive force (emf) • charge • drift velocity Students are reminded of the idea that power is the rate of doing work (or the...

This series of activities, from the Institute of Physics, help student to understand electrical resistance. What is resistance, how it can be measured, how it arises and what affects it? During the topic, resistance is related to current, voltage, type of material, temperature and light intensity. The electrical...

From the Institute of Physics, this learning episode provides a quantitative definition for resistance (R = V / I) which reinforces the qualitative notion that more resistance means less current. It looks at Ohm’s law, describing that this is not the same thing as the definition of resistance.

Activities...

Produced by the Institute of Physics, in this practical investigation students measure the current and voltage characteristics for several components and identify ohmic and non-ohmic behaviour. Students determine the V-I characteristics for: • a carbon resistor • semiconductor diode • a filament lamp In addition,...

From the Institute of Physics, this learning episode looks at the resistance of a metal and a semiconductor, giving a microscopic explanation of how resistance can vary with temperature. There is also a brief look at superconductivity and its applications.

LDRs (light dependent resistors) are semiconductor devices. From the Institute of Physics, in this learning episode students investigate the resistance of an LDR at different light intensities. This can be used as a basis to explain how photons liberate free electrons...

In this learning episode, from the Institute of Physics, students see how and why the resistance of a wire depends on the wire’s dimensions. They learn the definition of resistivity and use it in calculations.

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This series of activities, from the Institute of Physics, explores ideas about electricity applied to circuits that have real applications. Each learning episode is self-contained and tackles a particular topic. In this series the topics are:

Episode 114: Components in...

Produced by the Institute of Physics, this learning episode helps students to investigate the effective resistance of circuits with components in series and parallel. The activities include demonstrations, worked examples and student investigations.

In these activities, from the Institute of Physics, the concept of electrical power is explored. Students find that the energy transferred by an electrical component depends on the potential difference, current and the time for which it operates.

Part of a suite of activities produced by the Institute of Physics, this resource helps students develop their competence in using equations relating power and energy, in an electrical context.

The activities in this...

From the Institute of Physics, this learning episode links Kirchhoff’s circuit laws to the conservation of charge and energy. Students can verify the laws experimentally and use them to solve simple circuit problems.

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Produced by the Institute of Physics, this student experiment introduces the use of a potential divider as a source of variable potential difference. Students also learn to use potential dividers to detect temperature or light levels.