AP Physics B Objectives

Links:

College Board Topic III:
Electricity and Magnetism

Topics:

2. Conductors, capacitors, dielectrics
   1. Electrostatics with conductors
   2. Parallel plate capacitors

Time Range:
2 days

Suggested Teaching Strategies:

• To prevent electrostatics unit from becoming overwhelming, I choose to cover capacitors later after students know about circuits.
• Discuss principles of capacitance and demonstrate using large dissectible capacitor (charge plates, move them close and far and insert dielectrics and observe behavior of attached electroscope).
• Discuss Leyden jar and remind students of their use in the Wimhurst generator device.
• Illustrate the charging and discharging of a capacitor: hook 1-farad capacitor to source and large demo multimeter.

Aligned Resources:

• Dissectible capacitor and large Klinger electroscope
• Old-style and modern dissectible Leyden jars
• Board of commercial capacitors, with one dissected
• One-farad capacitor and large multimeter for demo

Revision Date:
December 2003