Higher:
Apply what they have learnt to connect other components to a circuit
Middle:
Be able to draw circuits using labelled diagrams
Lower:
Is able to find different ways to light a bulb
Lesson Recap Starter: Think back to the last lesson. How does electricity reach your home?
Lesson Starter: Can you name these parts which you might find in an electric circuit? Can you explain the part they play in conducting or creating electricity!
One hundred years ago there was very little access to any electricity - try to imagine what life was like?
Presentation - Starter Slide
Explore the story in the presentation, and learn about batteries and simple electrical circuits.
Key Concept:
During this unit, each lesson contains a key concept question housed in the '30 Second Challenge' slide. To help children master this content so the knowledge moves from their short term memory to their long term memory, at the beginning of the follow on lesson the question from the previous lesson is revisited.
The questions covered during this unit include:
1. What safety precautions do you need to take when working with electricity?
2. How does electricity reach your home?
3. What are the basic parts of an electric circuit?
4. Explain what you need to do to make a lamp will light in a simple series circuit.
5. Identify 5 electrical conductors and 5 electrical insulators.
6. What's the difference between a series and a parallel circuit?
Presentation
Expert Film: Chief Engineer Phillip Mintey describes a simple circuit containing wires, a bulb, a switch and a power source.
Philip is a Chief Engineer - what do the children think that means?
How we deliver the Gatsby Benchmarks:
2 - Learning from career and labour market information: Pop along to Developing Experts career’s zone to find out about jobs in your area.
4 - Linking curriculum learning to careers: This unit showcases careers that relate to electricity. Access our 360° virtual work tours.
7 - Encounters with Further and Higher Education: Pop along to Developing Experts career’s zone to find out about training providers in your area.
Presentation - Expert Film
Fruit Power Battery
(Adult supervision needed at all times)
Watch the Lesson Assignment film for more help with this activity.
Responsible adult to use a kitchen knife to cut a penny-sized slit in all of the lemons. Put a penny inside each slit of a lemon. This can be done under close supervision of a responsible adult, by the children, at the discretion of the responsible adult present.
In another part of the lemon, push a galvanised screw inside.
Take your leads with crocodile clips on and attach one crocodile clip on the penny of the first lemon and attach the other crocodile clip to the screw on the second lemon. Continue to attach the clips from penny to screw on each lemon.
Once you have reached the point of the last join, attach the remaining crocodile clips to a leg of each of the LED lights you are powering. You may need to switch legs to make it work.
Your LED should light up! Proving that lemons are a good conductor of electricity and type of battery! You could try using an assortment of fruit to explore their ability to be a power source and record your findings.
Fruit Power Battery
Lemons (the bigger and juicier the better). Pennies / Copper Coins
Zinc-galvanised nails - these should be blunt and not too long (they must not be able to touch the penny on the other side of the lemon).
Sets of alligator clips
LED lights
Kitchen knife (responsible adult use)
Handout
*Most LEDs will work for this experiment. However for the best results use low voltage LEDs, anything between 1.5V to 2.25V should work.
Red LEDs will be more reliable than other colours are these require less overall power to run. The higher the voltage on the LEDs the more lemons you would need in order to power them.
Remember LEDs have a positive and negative terminal, so if they fail to light first check the orientation of the LED.
Children to complete the work on the Handout available.
Quiz
With their talk partners, the children are to go through the quiz at the end of the presentation and answer the questions.
Handout
Quiz in presentation
Do the children recognise that battery powered devices use electricity?
Are the children using the correct names for the components?
Can they make a complete circuit to power a bulb?
Can they describe the flow of electricity round the circuit through the component and back to the battery or power source again?
Can they explain how the LED lights?
Quizzes available in pupil zone.
Unit knowledge organiser and test available in unit / lesson documents area.
A series circuit is...
A series circuit should contain...
Series circuits are useful in powering...
The Science Behind the Science
Circuits need power sources such as batteries. Wires are connected to both the positive and negative ends of the battery (or cell). Circuits contain other electrical components such as bulbs and motors, which allow the electricity to pass through them. Electricity will only flow and travel around a circuit that is complete. They cannot have any gaps or else the electricity cannot pass through and there must be no short circuits.
The basic parts of a circuit include: the battery, the wire(s), the bulb(s), buzzer(s), motor(s) and switches (on and off). When the switch is open, there is a gap in the circuit. This means that the switch is off, and that electricity cannot pass around the circuit. When the switch is closed, the electricity can travel around the circuit as the switch is on. If you add more batteries to a circuit, this will increase the power source (electrical energy) and will make the bulb a lot brighter. The more bulbs you add to a simple circuit, the less the electrical energy, which will make the bulbs a lot dimmer.
If you have longer wires, the electrical energy has a lot longer to travel around the circuit. This will also make the bulb a lot dimmer. Motors rotate when electrical energy is flowing around the circuit. Common electrical appliances include: refrigerators, freezers, washing machines, dishwashers, microwaves, ovens, hairdryers, toasters, vacuum cleaners etc.
Mission Assignment: Today we are looking at fruit-powered batteries. The acid comes from the citric acid inside of the lemon. The two metal components are zinc and copper and they are electrodes. Electrodes are the component in the circuit where the electric current enters and leaves the battery. With the zinc and copper set-up, the current will flow out of the penny and into the nail. This can be seen in the video. Once the fruit-power battery is connected to the LED, a complete circuit is made. As the electric current passes through this LED, it lights up the LED and passes back through all the lemons.
There are various types of citrus fruits. You could also try this out with limes and oranges etc. The more acidic the fruit is, the better it is for conducting electricity. This explains why the fruit battery works even when the copper nails are not touching each other. The citric fruit contains positively charged ions. When the nail is inserted into the fruit, the negatively charged ions start to move from the fruit into the zinc nail. This leaves the protons in the fruit. It is the transfer of electrons that generates electricity as soon as the wire is attached to the nail and the bulb lights up.
Identify common appliances which run on electricity. Construct a simple series electric circuit, identifying and naming the basic parts, including cells wires, bulbs, switches, and buzzers.
Forces, electricity and waves - Electricity - I have used a range of electrical components to help to make a variety of circuits for differing purposes. I can represent my circuit using symbols and describe the transfer of energy around the circuit. SCN 2-09a Forces, electricity and waves - Electricity - To begin to understand how batteries work, I can help to build simple chemical cells using readily-available materials which can be used to make an appliance work. SCN 2-10a
Forces and Energy: the study of energy, its origin, storage and transfer and the work it can do; the study of forces; the application of scientific understanding through inventions and machines.
Grouping and classifying.
Asking relevant questions and using different types of scientific enquiries to answer them
Grade 4 - Force, Work and Energy.
