Title: Relate Electricity and Magnetism

Problem: What is the relationship between electricity and magnetism?

Part 1: The light bulb

Can you make a light bulb, some wires, and a battery fit together to make an electric circuit so that the bulb will light?

1.  Make a light using just 1 wire, 1 battery, and 1 light bulb.

Draw 2 different configurations that work:
2.  Now, add a battery holder, bulb socket, and another wire to your circuit.
Draw a diagram of how you connected these things so that the bulb lit. This type of connection is called an electric circuit: /

3.  Unscrew the bulb until it is halfway out of the socket.

WHAT HAPPENS?

Now, press down on the bulb. By pressing down and then releasing you have made a switch to open and close the circuit.

WHAT HAPPENS?

4. Now use two batteries to light the bulb

Show two different ways to connect them in your circuit. How does the brightness of the light bulb change with each?

Part 2: What will happen if you then bring a compass near your circuit?

In this lesson, you will experiment with an electric circuit to see how electricity works. You also will discover how magnetism is related to electricity,

Procedure:

1.  Using two of the 20-cm wires, connect the battery and battery holder with the bulb and the bulb holder so that the bulb lights up.

2.  You will need another wire, bulb socket, and a short bolt to continue. Make a switch by screwing the bolt part way into the socket. Don’t screw the bolt all the way down. Add the third wire and your new switch to your original circuit. Press the bolt down. /
What is your evidence that an electric current is flowing or not?

3.  You will always use switches in these lessons, to open the circuit and save the batteries energy. Think about where you believe the electricity is flowing when the switch is on.

What happens when the switch is off?
4.  Turn off the switch to do the following - take the bulb and bulb holder out of the circuit and replace them with the longer wire. Place the compass under the wire so that the wire runs in the same direction as the needle is pointing. You may have to bend the wire to do this. /

5.  Wait a moment for the compass needle to settle down and then turn the switch on carefully.

What happens? Why do you think this happens? What happens when you turn the switch off?

6.  Try testing the other wires in your circuit by places the compass under them.

What happens when you turn the switch on and off? Predict which wires have electric current flowing through them. How can you tell?

Data Analysis: answer in your notebook

1.  What is meant by a closed circuit or an open circuit?

2.  Describe the different ways to detect that current is flowing through a circuit?

3.  How are magnetism and electricity related?

Conclusion: Write up what you found out while working with the electric circuits and the compass. Draw pictures of the circuits you built and use arrows to indicate where electric current flows in those circuits.

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