An Activity You Can't Resist

When thinned to two-dimensions, materials demonstrate unique optical and electrical characteristics that fall under the purview of condensed matter physics. The process of thinning bulk materials is called exfoliation with graphene being the most documented. In terms of application, while mechanical exfoliation of graphite is only useful for research, other methods of obtaining graphene make the material viable for circuits, touchscreens, sensors, and rollable e-paper. In this Educational Transfer Proposal (ETP), I will be using my research of the conductivity and pliability of graphite to develop a high school lesson about paper circuits and electrical resistance.

For my ETP lesson, I chose to develop an inquiry-based activity called “An Activity You Can’t Resist”. The ETP lesson was adapted from Flinn Scientific for a first year high school integrated science course. This ETP lesson falls under the study of my “waves and communications” unit, which starts with a study of static electricity and charge as a fundamental, quantifiable system/material property.