Electricity Activities

Static electricity  Start with static activities – construct a pith ball out of styrofoam and string – hang in a pitcher or just let the kids pinch the end with their fingers– the Styrofoam ball at the end of the string will be attracted and repelled to/from the charged objects.  Use a larger Styrofoam ball and pretend your charged rod is a magic wand

Static continued  Glass rod, plastic rod, hollow glass rod, various cloth, balloon, electrostatic generator, etc.

Build your own battery  Batteries store electric charge and allows the electricity to flow  Build the lemon battery or the potato clock – use a voltmeter to measure the charge produced or use an LED lightbulb

Battery and bulb  Once students understand that electrons can build static charges, and jump back and forth, begin to explain that electrons can flow from one place to another  Explain how the filament on a light bulb works – a thin carbon strand – demonstrate using steel wool – same thing except the steel wool burns and breaks – in a light bulb it’s a carbon filament and it doesn’t burn and break because it’s a vacuum in the bulb – no air

Make the light bulb light  Take the light bulb out of the holder and, using one wire, experiment with how you can get the electrons to flow and light up the light bulb.  Draw the combinations that work  Then get a second wire and try the combinations on this sheet to see which ones work

Conductors and Insulators  Does electricity flow through just wires?  Does electricity flow through everything?  Test different materials in the gap between the two wires and see

Human conductors  We can carry an electric charge – use the ufo ball to demonstrate – use as an introduction to circuits – students form a circle and hold hands – have the last students in the link each touch a finger to the metal electrodes on the ball – watch it light up and make a noise – what happens if anyone lets go of their hands?

Simple circuit

Circuit diagrams  Symbols for battery, switch, lightbulb and wires are introduced  Draw a few circuits to see if they would light up  From now on draw the circuits the students make

Circuit with switch  Draw diagram

Series circuits  Add one light to a simple circuit – what do you notice about the brightness?  Add a third light as in the picture – what happens?  Add a second battery – do the two batteries have enough power to light up 3 bulbs?  Unscrew one light bulb – what happens to the other two?  Why are series circuits not very good?  Draw diagram

Parallel circuits  Build a parallel circuit (without the switch at first)  Add a 3 rd bulb – does it still light up with only one battery?  Unscrew on light bulb – what happened to the other two?  Add switches  Why is papallel better that series?  Draw diagrams

Parallel circuits with switch(es)  Add a couple of switches – explain this is like having lights ion different rooms  The blue light holders on the left are set up in parallel – there are four in a kit but they’re not as useful

Magnets  Introduce magnets  Experiment – let the kids discover which ends attract and repel each other  Cover attracting and repelling magnet ends with a piece of paper and sprinkle iron filings on top to see the magnetic field  Video Video Attract Repel Whole magnet

Make a magnet with a magnet  Build a compass  Magnifly a sewing pin by rubbing it in one direction with a magnet.  This aligns all the scattered domains within the pin in the same direction…which turns it into a magnet.  Float a cork in a dish of water and place the pin on top – a compass  Afterwards “demagnetize” the pin by hitting it with a hammer or drop it repeatedly to scatter the domains again.

Electricity can also make magnets…  Electricity and magnetism are linked – huge discovery!  First use a magnet to see if the compass will move  Then wrap a copper wire 6 or 7 times around a compass and run a current through it.  What happens?  It generated a magnetic field and made the compass move, just like the magnet did!  So electricity running through a wire makes a magnetc field – we made it stronger by looping it a few times

Electromagnet  Experiment with how the strength of an electromagnet varies with how many turns of copper wire there are by measuring how many staples it can pick up  See who can make their magnet pick up the most  Experiment with the core – bigger nails, thicker, thinner nails, non metal cores? – would wood work? Or work as well?  Add more batteries?

…and magnets can make electricity : ) Wrap a copper wire around an empty toilet paper roll – connect the ends to a volt meter. When a strong magnet is inserted into the tube an electric current is generated – it’s an electrical generator – the magnet just needs to be turned and we have free electricity. What could turn this magnet for us? The hand generator turns a magnet inside copper coils which generates enough electricity to light the bulb

Turbines  Turbines turn big magnets inside huge coils to generate electricity for us.  We can use wind, water, and steam (heated by solar power or coal, oil or nuclear) to turn the turbines (to turn the magnet inside the copper coils)  Animation Animation Dam turbines