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===== Conductors: Instructor's Guide =====

==== Main Ideas ====
Students explore the properties of conductors.

==== Students' Task ====
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Students work in small groups to solve Griffiths Problem 2.36

==== Prerequisite Knowledge ====
==== Props/Equipment ====

  * [[:Props:start#whiteboards|Tabletop Whiteboard]] with markers
  * A handout for each student



==== Activity: Introduction ====
Short lecture on the properties of conductors, following Griffiths Section 2.5.
  - $E=0$ inside a conductor
  - $\rho=0$ inside a conductor
  - Any net charge resides on the surface
  - A conductor is an equipotential
  - $E$ is perpendicular to the surface just outside a conductor




==== Activity: Student Conversations ====
  * **Charges are free to move** -- This is a surprisingly difficult problem for students. Many students do not try to reason about charges moving, which is where all of the properties come from.
  * **Charges distributed on the surface** -- Many think that the charge is distributed on the surface (instead of the charge polarizing the conductor).
  * **Overgeneralizing the "balancing"** -- Some groups overgeneralize the idea of fields “balancing” and thought that the field inside the cavities would be zero.


==== Activity: Wrap-up ====
Students also had a difficult time at the end of the activity articulating what they had learned from this problems, so there was an assigned homework problem that asked them to do so.

==== Extensions ====