This lesson is very similar in subject matter and scope to the salt-water battery lesson. While it doesn't offer anything different to the curriculum, it can be used as a substitute battery lesson where aluminum cans are hard to find.

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• Write the teacher's guide
• Adapt the default evaluation form
• Design and upload illustrations

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- how batteries work

- series and parallel wiring

none

maybe students think of other salts or metals they could use in their batteries

teamwork to light an LED

Students make their own nail batteries, and combine them with classmates to light LEDs.

PEN lessons that meet the requirement are noted in brackets.

basic circuits

none

Anything involving electricity

[Copied from salt-water battery lesson]

Magnet demonstration: to demonstrate positive and negative charges. Teacher should have multiple magnets and a fairly smooth surface, so that they can demonstrate how the magnets can either repel each other (demonstrating similar charge) or attract each other (demonstrating opposite charge)

none

Students make their own nail batteries by wrapping galvanized nails with towel scraps soaked in salt water, then covering these towels with copper foil. Students will join into groups of 3-5 to connect their batteries in series and light an LED.

- galvanized nails (zinc)

- copper foil (copper)

- towel scraps

- bowl of water saturated with salt for soaking towels

- alligator clips

- small LEDs

small magnets for demonstration of charges, whiteboard and markers for drawing diagrams

- something to cut copper foil and towels

Two groups of 4-5 students, each with their own nail battery, works well because the teacher can answer questions more easily. The class can be scaled up, provided you keep a roughly 1:10 ratio for teacher:student.

Why should students want to participate in this lesson?

To create electricity using household objects.

Why should teachers want to teach it?

[from salt-water battery]

Get to teach science that is not usually taught, but about things that will be instantly recognizable to students.

Competition element (“battery races”) is a lot of fun.

Figuring out an anode-cathode metaphor on the fly is good teaching experience! (I've taught this a few times a different metaphor worked each time)

If this lesson (and its prerequisites) were the only PEN lessons someone took, what should they be able to do?

[also from salt-water battery]

Describe how a battery actually produces electricity.

Make a battery themselves out of an anode, a cathode and an electrolyte.

Describe a circuit as being continuous and made of moving charges.

Also: understand how batteries are attached in series.

If you had to teach this lesson tomorrow morning, what would you spend tonight working on? (assuming that materials were not an issue)

Anode-cathode and parallel-series metaphors!

Also: maybe providing other metals and salt solutions for students to experiment with.

If you hadn’t taught this lesson before, what questions would you have for someone who had taught a very similar lesson?

What are your favorite metaphors? Is there any way to work in a design element? Which of the two battery lessons would you recommend, and why?

If the only materials available were broken radios, TVs, and computers, could you do all the electronics in this lesson? (assuming you had solder, soldering irons, etc.) If not, what would be missing?

Yes.

If the only structural materials available were dish-cloths, cardboard, and plastic bags, could you make the mechanical bits of this lesson? (assume equipment as above) If not, what would be missing?

Yes.