Pseudo Day 98 – Current and Charge

Science 9 – March 27

Today the students were introduced to direct current circuits and had their first shot at understanding what makes electrical current “flow”.  I adapted the CASTLE curriculum, which helps conceptual understanding through the use of capacitors.  The capacitor demonstrates that current can’t originate in a battery since charges can’t move past the insulator in the capacitor. I could only demo this since our school doesn’t have capacitors.  I may buy them myself for next year.  I solder two capacitors back-to-back (either positive to positive or negative to negative).  This halves the overall capacitance (1/Ct = 1/C + 1/C) in the circuit but it makes the capacitors non-polar.  If you have non-polar capacitors, if they are not connected in the correct direction in your circuit they will get fried.