Electron Shuffle

[Matt Anthes-Washburn]

Here is a great activity to generate a kinesthetic model of a circuit where everyone participates. The analogies are rich: you can model electric charges, voltage sources such as batteries and generators, resistors such as light bulbs, series and parallel circuits, and the relationship between current and resistance.

Students act out "coulombs" of charges moving through the circuit, and pretzels (or pennies) represent electric potential energy (joules/coulomb = volts).

Credits: Ramon Lopez and Ron DeFronzo for the activity, which was written for Active Physics. Scott Bartholomew made the label sheets for student roles.

[Michael Couture]

Thanks for sending this out, Matt. I will definitely check it out, as I am starting Home 2 next week. - Mike

[Matt Anthes-Washburn]

One more worksheet for the activity...

[Michael Couture]

Thanks for sending the additional warm-up sheet. I used the electron shuffle with my class last week and thought it went well. It's a great way to help the kids understand at a gut level what is happening in a circuit, and to remember what happened (remember the pretzels!!!)