Electric Circuits

Understanding electric circuits can be challenging especially for students who often rely on everyday experiences with household appliances. Commonly used devices like torches mobile phones and iPods are all powered by electric circuits leading students to associate the functioning of circuits with batteries and power switches. Unfortunately students often use terms like ‘current’ ‘energy’ ‘electricity’ and ‘voltage’ interchangeably blurring the distinctions between them. These labels are frequently used in everyday language without clear meanings further contributing to the confusion.The voltage of a battery indicates the amount of energy it provides to the circuit components and also reflects how forcefully it pushes electrons in the circuit. A higher voltage means a stronger push. Understanding these fundamental concepts—current voltage and resistance—is essential for comprehending electric circuits. Instead of introducing these terms in a linear sequence based on measurement operations a new approach is proposed in this book. It focuses on integrating the system aspect of the electric circuit and introducing the three terms simultaneously in a qualitative manner considering the individual knowledge and conceptual schemes students bring into the classroom.