Resources: Materials for the Mission Assignment, such as 2 x 1.5V bulbs, 5 x wires, 2 x 1.5V cells, 1 x switch, and 1 x ammeter.
Handout: A table for the students to fill in to describe different substances and their properties. Extra questions and a stretch task are included on the second page.
If necessary, revise knowledge from Year 6, including fundamental electrical concepts such as circuits, conductors, insulators, batteries and switches.
Ask the students to explain why electricity is important to our lives and discuss all the ways they use electricity in their daily routine. This could be done individually or in small groups, and could include things like charging their phone, turning on lights, using the fridge and watching TV.
Go through the presentation slides to explain to the students how to build a circuit. The students can practice drawing circuits on a mini whiteboard and take part in activities during the presentation. They can then complete the practical and use the handout to record their results.
Career Film: Take a tour around Rolls Royce SMR's Heritage Museum in Derby to find out about Vaiva Nagtye's job. Vaiva works as the Lead Digital and Data Engineer for Rolls Royce SMR.
Expert Film: This is Vaiva Nagtye. Vaiva works as the Lead Digital and Data Engineer for Rolls Royce SMR. Listen to Vaiva as she describes an electric circuit and its parts.
On the handout, the students should identify the name of the circuit symbols. This could be done during the presentation. They should then answer the questions at the bottom of the handout. Ensuring that these are all correct will place them in a better position to complete the practical activity.
Support - As a class, use mini whiteboards to consolidate the different circuit symbols. If preferred, you could build some circuits first in front of the class to model the best way to complete the practical.
Challenge: On the handout, there are six simple circuits to build. The students should use the circuit diagrams to build these. For each circuit, they should write an observation. This could be about the brightness of the bulbs or the functionality of the circuit. The students should then design and construct their own circuits, practicing their prediction and evaluation skills.
With their talk partners, ask the students to go through the quiz at the end and discuss how they used their observational skills in the practical work. Then, the students should take the summative quiz to test their lesson comprehension.
This lesson looks at the fundamentals of electric circuits. It is important to establish what is required for a circuit to work and what the circuit symbols are. These skills are assumed as a foundation knowledge in the other electricity lessons.
Common misconceptions