ScienceFreePrintable

Electrical Circuits Investigation

A free science worksheet ready for your classroom. Open in Kuraplan to grab the print-ready PDF, customize it for your students, or generate a fresh version in seconds.

Download now

Name:Date:

Electrical Circuits Investigation

A team is building a battery-powered signal lamp for a model rescue station. Use the circuit clues and investigation results to work out how circuits function. Answer every question. Use batteries only for investigations—never experiment with mains electricity.

Trace the circuit

A circuit needs a complete conducting path for electric current to flow.

1.Name the component that supplies energy, the component that produces light, and the component that opens or closes the circuit.

2.The signal lamp stops glowing when the switch is opened. Which explanation is best?

Opening the switch breaks the complete path, so current cannot flow.
Opening the switch makes the battery produce more energy.
The lamp has changed into an insulator.
The wires stop being made of metal.

3.Fill the gaps: A circuit must be for current to flow. A battery provides , and conducting wires make a path around the circuit.

Test the materials

The team tests each object by placing it in a gap in a low-voltage battery-and-lamp circuit. A glowing lamp means the object lets current pass in this test.

Test object

Did the lamp glow?

Metal paperclip

Yes

Plastic spoon

Aluminium foil

Yes

Rubber band

Copper wire

Yes

4.Use the results table. List the three tested materials that conducted electricity in this investigation.

5.What pattern do you notice about the materials that made the lamp glow? Give one example from the results.

6.Why should the team keep the same battery and lamp while testing each material?

So the material being tested is the main thing that changes.
So every material will make the lamp glow.
So the wires can be removed.
So the battery becomes an insulator.

7.The team wants a covering for a wire that helps protect people from electric current. Which material from the results is the best choice, and why?

Improve the design

Use what you have learnt to explain and plan a working circuit.

8.Write the correct letter beside each component: Battery, switch, wires, lamp. A. carries current between components; B. changes electrical energy into light; C. provides energy; D. controls whether the path is complete.

Battery
Switch
Wires
Lamp

D. controls whether the path is complete
B. changes electrical energy into light
A. carries current between components
C. provides energy

9.The team adds a second identical lamp in the same loop (in series) with the first. What is a reasonable prediction about the lamps compared with a circuit containing just one lamp?

Both lamps will usually glow, but more dimly than the single lamp.
Both lamps will be brighter than the single lamp.
Only the second lamp can glow.
The battery will turn into a switch.

10.Draw a complete circuit for the signal lamp. Include a battery, wires, a lamp and a switch. Show the wires joining every component into one closed loop, and label each part.

Use this space for Question 10.

11.Why must this investigation use a low-voltage battery rather than a power point?