Name: Date:

Student Exploration: Circuit Builder

Vocabulary: circuit, closed circuit, conductor, current, electron, fuse, insulator, open circuit,
parallel circuit, series circuit, short circuit

Prior Knowledge Questions (Do these BEFORE using the Gizmo.)

1. What do a light bulb, a toaster, a radio, and a computer all have in common?

They all use electricity

2. Suppose you connect a battery to a small light bulb with a single wire. What do you think will
happen? Explain your answer.

The light bulb will turn on due to the battery powering it up.

Gizmo Warm-up: Build a circuit

1. Using the Standard components in the upper left of the Gizmo, try
to get a light bulb to light up. You can drag as many bulbs, wires,
batteries, switches and fuses as you like onto the circuit board.

A circuit is a path containing easily moveable charges. When the

light bulb lights up, negatively-charged particles called electrons
are flowing through the wire and bulb. This flow is called current.

2. Now try to light the bulb

with the smallest number
of components.

Make a sketch of your

simple circuit in this
space:

3. Based on what you have seen, what must be true for a circuit to light a bulb? You need two wires
connecting to the battery and the light bulb.

2018
 Get the Gizmo ready:
Activity A: • Click Clear.
• Turn on Show current and select
Closing a circuit Electron flow.
• Set up components as shown to the right.

Introduction: You should have just built an open circuit (shown above). The gap on the left
prevents the flow of charges. There are no gaps in a closed circuit, so charges can flow.

Question: What materials will close a circuit?

1. Predict: Conductors are materials with easily movable charges, allowing current to occur.
Insulators do not have easily movable charges, so current is not produced. Look at the nine
Materials at lower left. Which do you think are conductors? Which are insulators?

A. Predicted conductors: Pencil lead, brass, copper, iron, silver

B. Predicted insulators: yarn, wood, glass, plastic

C. How could you use your open circuit to test if a material is a conductor or insulator? Use the
materials to close the gap, if the bulb lights up, it’s a conductor; if it doesn’t its an insulator

2. Experiment: Drag each material into the gap of the open circuit. If the light bulb lights, the
material is a conductor. If not, the material is an insulator. Keep track of your findings below.

Conductors Insulators
Mechanical pencil lead glass
iron wood
silver plastic
brass yarn
copper

3. Analyze: Look at your list of conductors.

A. What kind of material are most conductors? metal

B. Did any conductor have a different effect on the light bulb than the others? Explain. The
mechanical pencil lead made the light bulb less bright than the other conductors.

2018
 Get the Gizmo ready:
Activity B:
• Click Clear.
Series circuits • Check that Show current is on.
• Build the circuit shown to the right.

Question: In a series circuit, components are arranged in a single loop. What are the
characteristics of series circuits?

1. Observe: Turn the switch to ON, which allows charges to flow through the circuit. Notice
how brightly the bulb is lit and how much current (shown by the arrows) there is. Now start
replacing wire segments with light bulbs. You can fit up to four bulbs in this series circuit.

A. What do you notice about the brightness of the bulbs as you add more bulbs? As more bulbs are
added, the bulbs get dimmer.

B. Do all the bulbs have the same brightness? All bulbs have the same brightness

C. Look at the current arrows in each part of the circuit. Are there any parts of the circuit

that have more current than other parts? No, they all have the same amount of

current

2. Explore: Now remove a light bulb from your series circuit, leaving a gap. What happens to

the remaining bulbs? They all turn off because the circuit is no longer closed

3. Extend your thinking: Build another series circuit with several light bulbs, a 1.5-volt AA
battery, and at least a few wire segments. Turn the switch to ON.

A. How does a circuit with a 1.5-volt battery compare to a circuit with a 9-volt battery? The bulbs are
less bright with a 1.5 volt battery.

B. Replace one of the wire segments with another 1.5-volt battery. What happens?
The bulbs get brighter because there is more voltage

4. Compare: Compare a series circuit powered by six 1.5-volt batteries to a series circuit
powered by a single 9-volt battery. Make sure there are equal numbers of light bulbs in each
circuit and that the batteries are all in the same orientation.

What do you notice? The light bulbs have the same amount of brightness in each circuit

2018
Why is this true? This is true because 6 1.5 volt batteries is equal to 1 9-volt battery. Since the voltage is the same,
the light bulbs have the same amount of brightness

2018
 Get the Gizmo ready:
Activity C:
• Click Clear.
Parallel circuits • Check that Show current is on.
• Build the circuit shown to the right.

Question: In a parallel circuit, there is more than one path that current can take. What are
the characteristics of parallel circuits?

1. Observe: Turn the switch to ON, which allows charges to flow through the circuit. Notice
how brightly each bulb is lit and how much charge is flowing in each part of the wire.

Are the two bulbs equally bright? yes

2. Experiment: Add two more light bulbs to the circuit,

as shown to the right. Turn the switch to ON, and
observe the brightness of the bulbs.

A. Did the brightness of the bulbs change? no

B. Remove one light bulb. What happens? Nothing, the lights stay the same brightness

C. How did the parallel circuit respond differently to these changes than a series circuit?

Adding bulbs: in a series circuit, adding bulbs made them dimmer, in a parallel circuit, the bulbs
stayed the same brightness

Removing bulbs: in a series circuit, removing bulbs made the remaining bulbs brighter; in a parallel
circuit, removing bulbs makes no difference

3. Observe: Replace one of the light bulbs in your circuit with a wire. Now there is a path in the
circuit with no light bulb to slow down the moving charges. What happens? All of the
power goes out to all of the bulbs

This situation is called a short circuit. The red arrows indicate enormous current. This is
very dangerous because so much current will heat up the wire and could even start a fire!

4. Apply: Short circuits can be avoided using fuses, devices that

melt if too hot. Set up the circuit shown to the right, and turn the
switch ON.
A. What happens? The bulb works as normal

B. Create a short circuit. What happens now? The fuse blows, preventing any current from moving.

C. How does a fuse make the circuit safer? If there is a short circuit, the current stops and cannot

2018
start a fire.

2018