Tinkering with Simple Electric Circuits

Hill-Freedman Middle School has established the only Philadelphia public school Multi-Year STEM Course for students in grades 6-8. Students take three STEM separate year-long STEM courses every year (mathematics, science and our NEW combined engineering/technology course).  As the STEM teacher, I am very interested in introducing my students to electric circuits.

The national workforce pipeline for electrical engineers is in high demand and many students may have the opportunity to study electricity in elementary school, but that’s it until college. My goal is to offer a middle school unit on electricity that will offer age appropriate content.

I plan to offer this unit as apart of my 8^th grade course. Our school follows an International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum model and each teacher is responsible for infuses at least two IB level units into their course each year.  I foresee this unit on electric circuits as great addition to my IB curriculum portfolio.

My expectations for students engaged in this unit are not only to gain new knowledge about series and parallel circuits, but also to make career connections along the way as they gain more understandings to new concepts.