Teaching Sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

10 minutes

Tune In: Hot potato!

20 minutes

Find Out: Conductors and insulators

25 minutes

Take Action: The importance of the materials in circuits

5 minutes

Reflection

Learning intentions

Students will:

explore the properties of conductors and insulators by experimenting with different materials
investigate the importance of these materials in the function and recycling of mobile phone components
consider the environmental and economic impacts of the materials used in the production of mobile phones and their circuitry.

Success criteria

Students can:

construct a simple circuit and demonstrate how different materials can either conduct or insulate electricity
describe the significance of using specific metals in mobile phone circuit boards and explain why these metals are considered precious
evaluate the importance of recycling mobile phones by considering the environmental and economic impacts of the materials used in their production.

Tune In: Hot potato!

Step 1

Explain to the class that they will be taking part in a 'Hot Potato' activity to explore what they already know about electricity and electrical circuits in mobile phones. If you have completed Lesson 1 in this Unit, Exploring Electrical Circuits and Mobile phones, with your class, students can be left in the same groups. Otherwise, divide your students into groups of approximately four.

Tell students that in this 'hot potato' activity, each group will get one question to start with. Groups will have one minute to answer the question by writing their answer on the piece of paper. After the minute is up, each group needs to pass their sheet quickly to the next group. The next group will then have one minute to add an answer on the question sheets until all groups have had an opportunity to answer all the questions.

Step 2

Provide each group with one of the Hot Potato Question Sheets and set a time limit for one minute. Start the timer and invite groups to record their answers. Call out stop once the timer runs out. Repeat until each group has answered each question.

Step 3

When the question reaches the last group or when the groups have run out of ideas, invite one person from each group to report back on the answers on their question sheet.

Find Out: Conductors and insulators

Step 1

Leave students in the same groups and hand out the Student Worksheet, along with wires, batteries and LED lights. Draw the circuit below on your whiteboard and ask the groups to create a working version with the materials you handed out. Make sure that students leave a gap where the oval shape is:

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

Opportunity for extension:

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 circuit simulator. (phet.colorado.edu/en/simulations/circuit-construction-kit-dc)

Provision for learning support:

Step 2

Hand out the materials to be tested. (Ensure there is a mix of metals and non-metals. Easy options are coins, aluminium foil and nails for the metals. Plastics, fibres and glass are good options for the non-metals).

Ask students to insert one material at a time in the gap and attach the wires to it. For each material, students should observe whether or not the light bulb turns on and record their findings on their Student Worksheet.

Material	The lightbulb turns on (electricity flows) Y/N

Step 3

Invite groups to answer the questions at the bottom of the Student Worksheet to understand the difference in the materials they tested. Students learned briefly about the concept of conductors and insulators in the previous lesson in this Unit, but if you haven’t completed this lesson they might need to conduct some research to find the answers.

Look at the materials that you placed in your circuit when the light bulb turned on. What properties/characteristics did they have in common?	They were all metals
Try and find out what the materials are called that allow an electrical current to flow through them and write their name here.	Conductors
Look at the materials that you placed in your circuit when the light bulb didn’t turn on. What properties/characteristics did they have in common?	They were non-metals
Try and find out what the materials are called that don’t allow an electrical current to flow through them and write their name here.	Insulators

Suggest students use a kid-safe internet browser like kiddle (kiddle.co). Here’s a site to use if they get stuck.

Step 4

As a class, discuss what was observed in their circuit experiment. Which substances turned the light on? Which ones didn’t?

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 and these types of materials are called INSULATORS.

Opportunities for extension:

Find out why some materials are conductors and why some are insulators. Make a poster or web page about it.

Take Action: The importance of the materials in circuits

Step 1

Show the class the following clip showing the materials that are used in manufacturing a mobile phone. Ask students to pay careful attention to the materials that are used in the circuit board of the phone.

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

After watching the video encourage students to pair up and answer the following questions on their Student Worksheet, and discuss the answers as a class.

Questions	Suggested Answers
What materials make up the circuit board?	Gold, silver, copper, platinum among others
Why do you think metals are used in the circuit board?	Because the circuit is responsible for transporting electricity in the circuit and metals are conductors of electricity, meaning they let electricity flow through them
What do you think the term precious means?	Precious metals are metals that are rare but have high economic value.
What do you think the issue is with using precious metals in mobile phones?	97% of people in Australia between the ages of 16-64 have a smartphone (Source). This is approximately 25,220,000 people! This number doesn’t include all the smartphones of all people around the world or all of the old phones that people have lying around, or the new ones that will be purchased.

Step 2

Task students with researching more about the metals that are found in the circuit board as well as other parts of mobile phones. Gold, silver, platinum, palladium, copper, lithium, and tungsten.

Assign one material mentioned in the video to each group (keep the same groups from the beginning of the lesson).

Students will need to find out the following information about their material/s and fill out the table on the Student Worksheet:

What are the properties of this metal?
Where is it used in the phone and how do its properties make it suited for its purpose?
How do we get this material?
Where do we get it from (e.g. is there a main country or continent, or multiple locations)?

Why is it considered precious/how rare is it? (Note: You might want to explain here that rare can mean that there isn’t much of it on Earth OR that it is really hard to extract.)

Step 3

When students have finished researching, bring the class back together to watch this clip:

MobileMuster - The Benefits of Recycling Your Phone (vimeo.com/265126147)

At the conclusion of the video encourage groups to share their research about each metal. Discuss any similarities and differences in the information and most importantly, discuss the reasons it is vital to recycle mobile phones at the end of their life – based on the video but also the information they researched.

You may like to show students this Recycling webpage from MobileMuster (mobilemuster.com.au/recycling/) or have them explore it in their groups to help them answer this question.

Opportunity for extension:

Task students with researching a specific rare earth metal used in electronics, such as neodymium. They should present their findings on its properties, uses in technology and the environmental impact of its extraction and use.

Reflection

Reflect on the lesson with your students using the 3,2,1 activity:

3 facts from the lesson
2 insights about why this lesson was relevant to them, their society and/or the environment
1 question they have from the lesson.

Provisions for learning support:

Group students in a way that allows peer support where needed, or provide students with the circuits pre-made and allow them to insert the materials into the gaps.

The Role of Conductors and Insulators in Mobile Phones

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Summary

Learning intentions:

Students will...

Success criteria:

Students can...

Lesson guides and printables

Lesson Details

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Curriculum Mapping

Resources Required

UN Sustainable Development Goals

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