How Can A Fifth Grade Student Demonstrate A Strong Understanding Of An Electric Circuit

The fifth grade student demonstrates a strong understanding of how electrical circuits work through an oral presentation. The student can model, describe, explain, or identify in their own way that an electrical circuit is a complete/closed pathway, through which an electric current (energy) flows from a source to produce light, heat, etc. The student will demonstrate a strong understanding of each component of an electric circuit by explaining or modeling how each part of an electrical circuit works. The student will be able connect to in-class activities and experiments by explaining why the electrical circuits they made in class caused a light bulb to light. Their explanation will include many details about the idea that the electric circuits

The student can somewhat model, describe, explain, or identify that an electrical circuit is a closed/complete pathway, through which an electrical current (energy) flows from a source to produce light, heat, etc. The student demonstrates a weak understanding of each component of an electrical circuit by modeling or explaining how each part works. The student connects to some in-class activities and experiments by explaining why the electrical circuits they made in class caused a light bulb to light. Their explanation included little detail about the idea that the electrical circuits they created and learned about in class, have electrical currents that transfer energy to produce heat and light. The student slightly explained that electrical currents can have different amounts of energy. The student also demonstrated their weak understanding of the difference between series circuits (each component gets energy from the source through a single pathway) and parallel circuits (each component of circuit has their own path to the energy source). The students presentation indicated some understanding of the NGSS standards related to energy and engineering design for their grade level (4-PS3-2, 4PS3-4). The student’s presentation can be conducted in a variety of ways through speaking, demonstrating, describing, explaining, visuals, and/or modeling. There are multiple ways for the student to demonstrate that they have a weak understanding of how electrical circuits work. Throughout the presentation, the student presents their knowledge in a way that is, for the most part, professional, slightly accurate, and comprehensible to the