Master Chef Electricity Challenge, Grade 9

-by Louis Cheng and Cindy Nilsson

Today the grade 9 students were given a series of instructions to complete a Master Chef Electricity Challenge.

In teams of four, they were provided a box of electrical supplies and had 10 minutes to begin researching how to build some circuits.  After their research time, they had to put away their laptops and textbooks to attempt to build the following:

• A series circuit 
• A parallel circuit
• Two way and three way switches - a three way switch is the kind of switch you might have in your house, where two different switches in different places turn the SAME light on/off 
• A conductivity meter - by connecting electrodes immersed in a liquid, you can determine if that liquid is conductive or not 
• A 'buzzer' game - by running current through a length of copper tube, and connecting a buzzer to it, you can make a challenge for yourself (similar to the game 'Operation') of moving a ring shaped wand along the copper tube - if the wand touches the tube, the buzzer will sound! 
• A rheostat - this is just a fancy word for light dimmer 

They then took pictures of the circuits they created in order to demonstrate their work.  In their pictures they included arrows to indicate the direction of electron flow.

As an added element, they invited Grade 5 students (also studying electricity in Science) to act as 'judges' to determine which demonstration most effectively taught the outcome.