Inventions Guide

The Inventions Teacher’s Guide is designed to coordinate with the ScienceWiz™ Inventions Teacher’s Pack which includes a book and materials for each student in the class, as well as the Inventions Workbook, which is sold separately.

Student Online Courseware Materials are also available.

Student interactive materials and assessments are provided in two forms:

1) One set of materials are set up for group sharing and discussions at the front of the class. You can present these materials using this guide. This Teacher’s Guide includes a highlighting capability which converts the selected text into speech. Highlight text to speak. Double click outside the text anywhere on the window background to stop the speech-to-text feature.

2) The second set of materials is available inside each student’s courseware account for them to explore and complete individually. The instructor will need to enter or bulk load the students’ names and email (or parents’) accounts to make use of this online courseware component. The online student courseware offers auto-grading and auto-record keeping.

Each student account also includes:

a highlighting capability which converts the selected text into speech.
an individual note-taking capability.

Your feedback is greatly appreciated. Please let us know what you like and what you would like to see changed or improved (pan@sciencewiz.com).

Module 1: Electric Motors

The first three modules explore inventions with coils: a telegraph, a motor, a generator and a radio. These inventions form the foundation for the information age. Without this foundation, there would be no electrical grid, no electric motor, and no communications. This is engineering with a capital E. These include 6 separate 30 – 40 minute lessons. To prepare for this course, review the 40 page ScienceWiz™ Inventions Book.

Module 1 – Lesson 1: Inventions: Building an Electric Motor (pgs 5-10)

Before you begin, introduce Electra.
Click on the E or Electra, for a brief introduction.

Module 1- Lesson 1: Inventions with coils and building an electric motor.

Collect and bring to class: D-cell batteries — 1 per student.
Use the voltmeter to have students track the strength of their batteries. Use smooth jumbo sized paper clips. Use cardboard or shoe box lids to anchor the motors as shown on page 22. Study pages 5-10 to understand how to build a motor.

Show the videos:
1) “Coils, Coils, Coils” – simple video
2) “Good Batteries” – instructive video
3) “Good Electrical Connections” – instructive video

Hand out the materials to build a motor listed on page 6 to each student along with the ScienceWiz™ Inventions Book.

Read page 5 aloud.

Build the motor as shown on page 6-10.

Use pieces of cardboard to anchor the motors as shown on page 22. Have students put their names on their motors. Store for the next class.

Show the video “Exploring how motors work; A motor changes electrical energy into motion.”

Transduction or the changing of energy from one form to another is what motors do. Specifically, the circuit with the motor converts chemical energy in the battery — to electrical energy in the wire — to motion in the coil. Motion is a form of energy.

Put the key words on a science vocabulary chart: coil, motor, motion, transduction, energy

Module 1 – Lesson 2: How the Electric Motor Works (pgs 11-12)

Review: Have students recall what they did last time and the new vocabulary words. Review that a motor takes electrical energy and changes it into motion or kinetic energy.

This is TRANSDUCTION or the conversion of energy from one form to another. Have students discuss what household items have electric motors.

Module 1- Lesson 2: Exploring how the inertial half motor works. Learn why the motor spins.

Prepare: Read pages 11 and 12 before class and watch the videos below.

Have the students: describe what they think will happen when they place the coil in the motor circuit near a compass, as shown on page 11. Have them state what they think will happen before they do it.

Ask students to explain why they think their motors spin.

Hand out: Motors made by students, compasses.

Have students test what actually does happen. Then read, discuss and interpret the results on page 11 with them.

Next demonstrate to your classroom, how you want them to connect a light bulb in series (one big loop) and in parallel with the spinning motor.

Have them discuss what may happen before they try it.

Then have them do it. Have them observe how the light bulb flickers. Discuss how the page 11 results help to explain why the bulb flickers.

Show the videos:
1) “Making a spinning motor; Proving that the coil is an electromagnet”
2) “Making a spinning motor; Figuring out why the motor spins”

Add the key word on the science vocabulary chart: shaft

Class Assignment: This was a half inertial motor.

This was a half inertial motor. Have students research how a full motor is different and have them describe what brushes and an armature are by breaking open and discussing motors. Have other students research who Tesla was.

Module 2: Generator

Module 2 – Lesson 1: A generator is a motor in reverse (pgs 13-15)

Inventions Lesson 4: A generator, a motor in reverse
Learn what a generator is and how it works.

Collect and bring to class: Extra cotton or nylon string. Read pages 13 – 14 and practice pulling the string.

Preview the videos that you will use for this lesson looking under the headings:
“Motors”, “Generator”, “How Power Stations Generate Electricity.”
Look up Tesla on the internet to add to the discussion.

Review: Have students recall what they did in the last two classes and discuss the vocabulary words. Discuss how the motor works. Have students discuss brushes and armature. Who was Tesla?

Have the students: Perform the experiment on page 13 and 14.
This experiment only takes 10 – 15 minutes at the most.

This experiment only takes 10 – 15 minutes at the most.

Then have students break open a few of the motors to see what is inside as shown on page 15. These are “full” motors.

Compare these motors with the inertial “half-motors” that they built. Have them discuss how these motors are different (armature) and how they are the same.

Show the videos:
1) “Motors and Generators (a motor in reverse)”
2) “Video on how a generator works”

Module 2 – Lesson 2: More on Generators (pgs 5-7)

Review: The

Lesson 2: More on Generators
Learn more about how moving magnets through a coil

Collect and bring to class: The

Hand out the

Have the students: Make and use a galvanometer to detect electrical current.

Add the key words on a chart:

Show the video:

Inventions Lesson 6: How generators are used in power plants. Learn how induced current is how we currently generate electric power.

Collect and bring to class: Hand out

Ask students if they have seen a hydroelectric power plant?

Read and discuss page 16.

Show the videos
Under the heading of “How Power Stations Generate Electricity — basic science”
“The Infrastructure behind the light switch)”
Find pictures of electrical power plants near you.
Discuss how these electrical power plants turn generators to make electricity.
(Only solar farms do not spin coils in a magnetic field or vice versa.
Currently all other electrical power plants do.)

Add the key words on the chart: generator, electrical grid,
renewables, transmission lines

HOMEWORK OR EXTENDED ASSIGNMENT: Have students complete the workbook pages below. These can be submitted online with the courseware module.

Module 2 – Lesson 3: Faraday’s Law

Module 3: Telegraph

Module 3 – Lesson 1: Making a Telegraph

Review: Have students describe the two inventions they have made with coils, specifically, what they built and how each worked.

Inventions Lesson 7: Make a telegraph. Learn about the telegraph’s place in history.

Collect and bring to class: D-cell batteries. Have students use a voltmeter to sort for the working batteries.

Read pages 17 – 22 and build a telegraph.
There are a number of videos worth seeing.
Review the full set of telegraph videos. Many are very short but interesting.

What was the energy “transduction” for the motor —
from chemical energy in the battery, to electrical energy in the wires, to motion for the coil and the shaft.

What forms of energy conversion took place with the generator — from motion to electrical current in the wires to light and heat in the bulb.

Have the students: Build the telegraph and test what conducts (pages 17-22).

Show: videos Inventions: Portal of Discovery under the heading “Telegraph:”
1) “Invention of the Telegraph; History of the Telegraph”
2) “Who REALLY invented it?; The Inventors of the Telegraph”
3) “Actual Telegraph Key; Clicking Away”
4) “Distress signal from the Titanic; Save Our Ship!”

Add the key words on the chart: telegraph, telegraph key, switch, Morse Code

HOMEWORK OR EXTENDED ASSIGNMENT: Have students complete the workbook pages below. These can be submitted online with the courseware module.

Module 3 – Lesson 2: Making a Relay

OPTIONAL: Make the relay, which is an “electrically controlled switch” as shown on page 24. This can be a separate lesson. See the ScienceWiz.com Inventions video for details: “Sending messages farther with a relay; Making a relay.”

Inventions Lesson 8: Ohms Law and Voltage
Learn to use a multimeter to measure voltage

Collect and bring to class: Hand out

Review: The

Hand out

Have the students: Make and use a galvanometer to detect electrical current.

Add the key words on a chart:

Show: The video

Module 4: Radio

Module 4 – Lesson 1: Making a Radio

Introduction: We live in a sea of radio waves.
These are electromagnetic wave.
Radio waves are invisible to our eyes and to our ears.
We transmit radio signals from radio stations.
Household radios pickup or receive these signals and convert them
into sound wave. (Light wave are electromagnetic waves that our eyes
can detect. Radio waves are much lower frequency.)

Lesson 1: Making a Radio – a 3 lesson project
Learn how to use a coil to build a simple AM radio.

Collect and bring to class: See pages 26 for details

cardboard bases – 1 per student
extra antenna wire — from 25 to 100 feet
scrap sheet of paper – 1 per student
toilet paper tubes – 1 per student
paper towel tubes 1 per student
1 roll of aluminum foil, tape, glue – white glue
scissors – multiple pairs to share among 2-4 students each

Construct the coil and the variable capacitor and glue in place as shown on pages 25-31.

Allow to stand overnight or until the glue dries.

Show the videos:video and simulations on the inductor, the capacitor, the tuner team and resonance. Spread these programs out over 2-3 days.

Add the key words to the science vocabulary chart: inductor, capacitor, variable capacitor

Module 4 – Lesson 2: Completing the Radio

Lesson 2: Completing the Radio

Collect and bring to class: Planned the antenna and ground at your school

Review: the function of the inductor, the capacitor and the resonance in the circuit. Use the videos and discussions to consolidate the information.

Complete their radios (pages 31-33).

Making the Radio work – Using a good ground and antenna.

Show the videos and interactive simulations on the antenna, Schottky diode, earphone. Spread these programs out over 2-3 days.

Add the key words on the science vocabulary chart: antenna, ground, earphone, Schottky diode, ground

Module 4 – Lesson 3: Radio Waves and the Electromagnetic Spectrum

Review: Make sure all students have gotten their radios to work.

Lesson 13: Exploring how the radio works using the

Go over how this passive radio circuit works. Discuss the source of energy — Radio waves. Go over the analog components in the circuit and their symbols.