Electrical+Networks

=Electrical Networks Lesson Plan= Author: Tom Hayden (thayden@gmail.com) Date: 5/5/2011

This lesson consisted of both a short powerpoint presentation about networks and the electricity grid followed by an interactive worksheet that the students used to (hopefully) gain some understanding about how the grid works.

Presentation Component
The objective of the presentation was to talk about the following:
 * Reintroduce the students to the ideas about networks (what are nodes & edge)
 * Connect it with some of the ideas from the unit on electricity
 * Talk about computer science related subjects, such as electrical cascades. In the case of electricity networks, the whole idea of a cascade maps directly back to blackouts. In computer science and network science, we think about cascades and (more generally, diffusion) often in the spread of viruses on a computer network, spread of ideas on a social network, etc.

[|Powerpoint Presentation (Google Docs)]

Worksheet / Activity Component
The short presentation was followed up with an interactive computer-based simulation activity. The questions on my worksheet are not great. I would suggest some modifications - the students really struggled with some aspects of the questions and/or thought many of the questions weren't relevant or couldn't connect them to ideas they learned about.

[|Worksheet (Google Docs)]