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Lesson Plan: Force on Conducting Wires in Magnetic Fields Physics • Third Year of Secondary School
This lesson plan includes the objectives, prerequisites, and exclusions of the lesson teaching students how to use the formula 𝐹 = 𝐵𝐼𝐿 to calculate the force experienced by a current-carrying wire that has been placed in a uniform magnetic field.
Objectives
Students will be able to
- recognize that if a current-carrying wire is placed in a magnetic field, there will be a force on it and it may move,
- recognize that the wire must be placed perpendicular to the magnetic field for the magnitude of the force to be greatest,
- recognize that if the wire is placed parallel to the field, there will be no force on it,
- work out the direction of the force using Fleming’s left-hand rule,
- use in all permutations.
Prerequisites
Students should already be familiar with
- what electric current is,
- the idea that permanent magnets can attract or repel each other,
- what a force is.
Exclusions
Students will not cover
- cases in which the angle between the wire and the field is neither nor ,
- what happens in nonuniform magnetic fields/time-varying magnetic fields,
- what happens when the wire is curved/anything other than straight,
- what happens when the wire has an alternating current,
- the effect of magnetic fields on charged particles/beams of charged particles,
- torque on loops of wire.
