Part of Lesson Plan: **Introduction to Batteries (updated) By Eli Jaramillo

Activity Overview / Details

Lesson wrap-up:

Materials needed:

• Student Worksheet:  Making a Simple Battery
• PowerPoint presentation slide #10

Instructor:  Have students finish the 'Wrap-Up' section of their worksheet.  Use this as a discussion point. 

Instructor:  "Now let's wrap up the lesson, and discuss what we've learned".

Questions:  (Call students out vs. asking for hands)

(Slide #10):

1.  "How can we make electricity with an acid solution?"  (If we dip or submerge two unlike or different metals into an acid solution, we create potential electricity).

2.  "How can we get a battery to produce electricity?"  (Applying a load across the positive (+) and negative (-) 'posts' of the battery).   

3.  "Referring to the diagram you drew:  What makes up a complete circuit?"  (Battery, load, and wires or conductors to connect the battery and the load).

4.  "What can a complete circuit accomplish?"   (It can do work, turn a motor, light a bulb, etc.)

5.  "On our lemon batteries:  What happened with the LED when we wired two lemons or cells together?"  (LED didn't light).

6.  " What was our solution to make it work?"   ( We needed to add more electrical ‘power’, which is called amperage, or ‘amps’.   We did this by wiring in more 'cells', the remaining two lemons).

Batteries:  What's next?

Instructor:  "In the next few days we'll learn more about automotive battery cleaning and testing.  You'll also understand clearly why it's important to have all six battery cells working together and what can happen if they don't."