← All lessons
🔬 Science - Class 7
Unit 8 · Electricity and Magnetism

Combining Cells: Series and Parallel Presentation

ScienceSubject
15 minEstimated read
Slide 1 of 4
Unit 8 · Electricity and Magnetism

Combining Cells: Series and Parallel

Science & Technology · Grade 7

Learning Objectives

🔗

Tell a series combination from a parallel one at a glance

➕

Work out the total voltage of either arrangement

💡

Explain why series gives brightness and parallel gives time

🔦

Choose the right combination for a given appliance

One Question Tells Them Apart

  • Look at where two neighbouring cells are joined
  • Are the poles that meet OPPOSITE, or the SAME?
  • Opposite, nose to tail in one line: that is SERIES
  • Same, all positives on one wire: that is PARALLEL
On the left three cells taped end to end in a straight line with wires at each end, and on the right three cells standing separately with looped wires joining them

8 more slides are waiting

The notes are free to read in full.

Create free account Sign in

Presenter notes: Hold up three identical cells and one bulb and make a claim they will want to test. Tell them that with these three cells you can either make that bulb twice as bright, or keep it alight three times as long, and that you can choose which, but you cannot have both. Ask what you would have to change to switch between the two outcomes. Not the cells, since they are the same three. Not the bulb. The only thing left is how the cells are wired together, and that is the whole lesson: the same components, joined two different ways, buying two completely different things.