Teaching Sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

10 minutes

Tune In: What powers our mobile phones?

20 minutes

Find Out: Exploring electricity

25 minutes

Take Action: What are circuits?

5 minutes

Reflection

Learning intentions

Students will:

understand the basics of how electricity is used in a mobile phone circuit and battery
discover what a circuit is, how it works and how to draw a circuit diagram
explore how mobile phone circuit boards work and what materials they contain.

Success criteria

Students can:

construct a working electrical circuit using a battery, wires and a light bulb, and use circuit symbols to accurately draw a diagram representing the circuit created
evaluate the differences between traditional circuits and circuit boards in electronic devices
explain the importance of materials in circuit boards and the significance of recycling them.

Tune In: Exploring electricity

Preparation

In this lesson, students will be experimenting with electricity using equipment to build electrical circuits. If you have the equipment available this would be ideal, however, if you don’t have the equipment on hand the Circuit Simulator from PhET Interactive Simulations (phet.colorado.edu/en/simulations/circuit-construction-kit-dc) is a fantastic backup resource that will allow students to undertake the same activities digitally!

Step 1

Show your students the first slide on the attached visual explainer showing an image of a smartphone. If you have access to a smartphone you could show your students a physical version of the phone instead. As you show students the phone, ask them – how do our phones work? What allows them to make calls, play videos and music, and take photos?

Lead students to bring up electricity. Electricity is a type of energy that we use in everyday life. Prompt a discussion to explore what your class already knows about electricity.

Step 2

Next, show your students the next slide on the visual explainer which shows what a smartphone looks like when its components are taken apart. Ask your students which two of these components are most responsible for providing and directing the electricity that makes our smartphones work.

Step 3

Display the answers on the next slide to show students that it is the battery and the circuit boards that are responsible for the electricity in phones and other electronic devices. The battery produces the electrical energy to power the phone, and the circuit board is where the electricity travels in order to power the different components and control them.

Explain to the class that today they will be exploring electricity and circuits.

Find Out: Exploring electricity

Step 1

Divide your students into small groups. Give each group a battery, battery holder, four wires and a light bulb, and challenge them to make the light bulb switch on! They can use as much of their material as they want. You could also use the Circuit Simulator (phet.colorado.edu/en/simulations/circuit-construction-kit-dc) for these steps.

If you are using LED lights with positive and negative charged points, students may need support getting the polarity right in their circuits. If wires are attached incorrectly, the LED lights will break.

Step 2

Ask each group to draw a picture of their working circuit on the board. At this stage you do not need to introduce circuit symbols; let students sketch out their circuits however they like.

Discuss the pictures as a class. Were they all the same? What did they have in common? What was needed to make the bulb light up?

Step 3

Explain to your students that an electric circuit is a path that electricity travels on. A simple circuit needs three things to work:

a source of power
a closed loop/pathway
some type of device that can use energy (a circuit without any type of device using or resisting the flow of electricity can cause a short circuit – you can show your students this concept using the PhET simulator with a circuit made from just wires and a battery).

You might like to watch the following clip with your students to further explore what electricity is:

What Is Electricity? (youtube.com/watch?v=oB1v-wh7EGU)

Step 4

Explain to your students that circuits can be represented using symbols and circuit diagrams. Show them the five common symbols used in simple circuits using the attached visual explainer asking them to figure out what each symbol might mean in the table in the Student Worksheet.

Show students the correct answers using the next slide and encourage them to write the actual meaning of the symbol in the table.

Step 5

Task students with using the symbols to draw a circuit diagram for the circuits they made.

Show students the answers using the visual explainer showing them examples of how the symbols can be used together to represent an entire circuit, pointing out how electricity can only flow when the circuit is complete. (The light will only be on when the switch is closed).

Step 6

Explain to your students that the reason the wires you are using can let electricity flow through them is because they are made of metal – metals allow electricity to pass through them. Materials that do this are CONDUCTORS. The reason the electricity doesn’t harm us when we play with the wires is because they are coated in plastic – plastic is a material that doesn’t allow electricity to pass through it and these types of materials are called INSULATORS.

You may like to show students what a wire looks like on the inside of a phone in order to illustrate this to them using the attached visual explainer.

Opportunities for extension

Students can use the batteries, wires, and light bulbs to make as many different working circuits as they can. They could draw circuit diagrams for all the working circuits they create in their exercise books. Once students have finished creating and recording their circuits, have them turn to another group and compare diagrams. If the other group has any different types of working circuit, students should try it out for themselves and record it.
Students and groups who are particularly interested in this topic could be challenged to see what happens to the brightness of the globes and the electrical current when more batteries and light globes are added and taken away from the circuit. As well as what happens when you add more pathways (e.g. creating a parallel circuit). This activity would be more easily completed in the online simulator (phet.colorado.edu/en/simulations/circuit-construction-kit-dc).

Take Action: Mobile phone circuits

Step 1

Explain to your students that the circuits students have just learned about are in many of the devices we use, including mobile phones – although in phones the circuits have to be really small to fit! They are in the form of circuit boards!

Ask your students to look closely at the images of the circuit boards on the visual explainer. What parts of the circuit board correlate to the circuits they have been working with?

Step 2

Ensure students understand that these circuits do not have wires like the ones they have been experimenting with. Show the video below to your students to show how circuits can be shrunk to fit inside electronic devices!

Watch the video until 3:35 minutes. Some of the language might be a little difficult for students to understand, but the images help in showing what a circuit board actually looks like and how it works.

What is a PCB? - Lesics (youtube.com/watch?v=YJr-kHy6STg)

Step 3

Conduct a class discussion about the video and get students to compare and contrast the traditional circuits they have been using with the circuit boards. What acts as the ‘wires’ in both types? What are the advantages and disadvantages of both? What materials do they think are used in manufacturing circuit boards?

Step 4

Show your students the following video to think about what is inside mobile phones, especially the circuit board. Prompt a discussion after the video to talk about the importance of the types of materials in the circuit board.

MobileMuster -What’s Inside Your Phone (vimeo.com/263456775)

Step 5

In the same groups as earlier in the lesson, task students to research the answers to the following questions so they can understand the importance of circuit boards – both when we are using them and when we are finished with them.

What does a circuit board inside a phone do?
What materials are used in circuit boards?
Why is it important to recycle circuit boards?
How can you recycle circuit boards?

Students might find the following resources helpful:

Circuit board recycling - Aus E-Waste (ausewaste.com.au/services/circuit-board-recycling/)
Recycling - Mobile Muster (mobilemuster.com.au/recycling/)
The Top 10 Metals And Minerals Powering Your Mobile Phone - MEC Mining (mecmining.com.au/the-top-10-metals-and-minerals-powering-your-mobile-phone/)

Reflection

Encourage your students to reflect on the following lesson using the ‘Step in, Step out, Step back’ reflection activity in their Student Worksheet.

Exploring Electrical Circuits and Mobile Phones

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Summary

Learning intentions:

Students will...

Success criteria:

Students can...

Lesson Guides and Printables

Lesson Details

Skills

Curriculum Mapping

Resources Required

UN Sustainable Development Goals

Additional Info

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