With Wires, Squaring Makes Circular (Part 1)
Activity on the dataset Copper Wires and Electricity
Students will explore relationships among wire area, wire diameter, gauge numbers, and their units of measure, all relationships that have been made convenient with help from mathematics.
Learning objectives: Students will explore relationships among wire area, wire diameter, gauge numbers, and their units of measure, all relationships that have been made convenient with help from mathematics. Students will: Graph the relationship between wire diameters and the American Wire Gauge (AWG) number Create new attributes using mathematical transformations Fit a nonlinear function to the data. Understand the units in which electrical wire diameters are measured and described
Welcome to this Tuva activity! We’re pretty accustomed to our lives with electricity. But behind that outlet on the wall, someone already made several decisions that make it work and that make it safe. They chose the material, the gauge, the length, considered what its job will be, and its environment. Along with safety and function, this activity is also about units of measure. More than 100 years after electrical wiring of homes was commonplace in the United States, NASA’s JPL and Lockheed Martin had a rocket-science incident that you can reference when thinking about matching units of measure and mathematical conversions. In this activity, you will explore relationships among wire area, wire diameter, gauge numbers, and their units of measure, all relationships that have been made convenient with help from mathematics. Click Next to get started!
Topics and standards: Science, Energy, Physical Science, Association Between Quantitative Variables, Electricity, Resistance, Electricity & Magnetism, HS-PS2-5, MS-PS2-3, Grades 9-12, Grades 6-8, Guided, TEKS Science PHY.6.D, 8-PS2-1, 8-PS2-2, 3.2.6-8.I, 3.2.9-12.M