Kids stuff: science term one electricity

A torch

Super saturated sugar crystals

This term we looked a electrical circuits and energy sources. In their first lesson they were given aluminium foil, a light bulb and a DC battery and asked to make the bulb light up. this was a bit more difficult than it looked but we eventually worked it out [with a bit of frustration!] The following lessons looked at batteries in parallel and in a series to see which produced brighter lights. Then we looked at materials to see whether they were conductors or insulators. Finally we looked at fuses [and how to blow them up], switches and 'green' batteries. Here were some the girls made from, potatoes, salt water and fruit acid. We looked at static electricity and made water bend by placing a statically charged ruler near water coming out of a tap.We also came across a Tesla Generator which harvested energy from the atmosphere but couldn't work out how to put it together so had to call in the expertise of my Uncle who made one up for us and sent us a pic. The one we saw on youtube generated 3 Watts, enough energy to power a mobile phone but when made up coiled only actually generate one thousandth of one watt, not enough to do much of anything, all the same it was fascinating to find out about an inventor who changed the world through his discovery of AC electricity and the electrical coil.