Electricity Unit Overview

Quest Online Homework due 5/2, 5/9 and 5/16

Resistance of a Light Bulb lab due 5/14

Unit Test 5/21

Current Electricity Unit Goals

• Know meanings of potential difference (voltage), current, resistance, power. Be able to use appropriate relationships between them with correct abbreviations and units.
• Properly use the terms series, parallel and circuit.
• Draw and decipher circuit diagrams.
• Determine current, resistance, potential difference and power output for any part of a circuit, including
• Simple circuits, series circuits, parallel circuits and complex circuits with both series and parallel elements.
• Describe what affects an object’s resistance and categorize resistors as ohmic or nonohmic
• Interpret graphs about resistance I vs. V and V vs. R.
• Know how to include ammeters and voltmeters in a circuit and what this says about their resistances.
• Describe the structure of a capacitor.
• Use transient currents to describe how steady state voltages and currents are established.
• Describe how houses are wired and the role of circuit breakers.
• Determine loss of energy to heat in wires and describe how it can be reduced.
• Trace the conducting path through light bulbs.
• Describe the souce of internal resistance.
• Use the pressure metaphor for voltage and interpret color-coded voltage diagrams.