Over the last year as a Kenan Fellow, I have learned a lot of valuable information. Being able to spend time alongside electrical engineers designing and inventing our future gave me an even better understanding of the importance of a strong STEM foundation for all students. Additionally, the professional development I received through the program was by far the most relevant and worthwhile PD I’ve ever encountered as a teacher.  The experiences I gained through my Kenan Fellowship are very difficult to find elsewhere and have strongly influenced my career.

After seeing the cool things that electrical engineers were doing at the FREEDM Center, I worked on developing a very basic introductory lesson on circuits for 6-8th grade students. The goal was to ignite their interest in circuitry while requiring very little investment in materials from the teacher. The solution was to create the “Pencil Circuits” lesson that uses a pencil, 9V battery, and LED’s to create circuits. No wires—students’ pencils “draw” the wires!

I would love for this lesson to be used by teachers and anyone else who wants to lead a lesson on introducing circuits. Through my fellowship, we worked to create engineering lessons that would be sent out to every county in NC and possibly beyond. This lesson could act as a supplement to the other lessons.

The student worksheet is posted at the link below:

Pencil Circuits