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**What is electricity?**

Electricity is a form of energy which can produce heat, light, sound and movement. Although it is such a large part of our daily life with which primary age children will undoubtedly have come into contact, how it works can still be an extremely difficult concept to understand. To understand how electricity travels through a circuit, the ‘electrical flow’ or 'current', it is necessary to understand that all materials are made up of tiny atoms which cannot be seen with the human eye. These atoms are made up of even smaller particles including electrons, which have a negative charge. A battery, or cell, is able to create an electrical flow because the chemicals inside it produce a surplus of electrons at the negative terminal and a deficit at the positive terminal. As electrons are negatively charged, and are attracted to their opposite – the positive side of the battery – they will flow throughout the circuit in order to reach this. To demonstrate this to children it would be useful to make this visual by showing them a working electrical item which no longer works when the battery is connected to the wrong terminals.

**Conductors and Insulators** Electrical conductors and insulators are also determined by electrical flow. A conductor is a material which allows electricity to flow through it, the more easily the electricity can flow, the better a conductor it is. An insulator is the opposite, and will not allow (or will allow very little of) this electrical flow. All metals are good conductors, including copper, aluminium and zinc. Rubber, wood and plastic are good insulators and this is why it is these types of materials we use to cover copper wiring, to make sure we are not electrocuted when handling the wires. A misconception here may be that the plastic surrounding a wire helps the electricity to travel, as it might be logical to the child that if all wires have plastic around them and are meant to let electricity flow then the plastic must aid this. You may want to show them a circuit in which the wires have their insulation removed and show the pupils that this has no effect on the component in the circuit, i.e. the bulb is no dimmer, or the buzzer is no quieter. A material must have electrons which are free to move between atoms within it to be able to conduct electricity. If the electrons in a material are not free to move the material cannot be a conductor. Using different materials in a circuit to see if the component can still work, and therefore if the material conducts electricity, is the one of the simplest (and hopefully enjoyable) ways to get your class investigating in science!

**Series Circuits** A series circuit is a one loop circuit that has a power source (a battery or cell) and can contain one or more components. The circuit must be complete to allow the electricity to travel around it. The electricity will only travel in one direction. Key Stage 2 pupils will draw the components of a circuit as shown below: 

**The Components...** **Batteries** provide the ‘push’ in the circuit to move the electrons around. Voltage is how much ‘push’ the battery can give the current; most common household batteries (AA, AAA, C and D) have a voltage of 1.5. If you add more batteries to a circuit you are increasing the voltage and therefore increasing the push of electrons. This means when you put more batteries in a circuit more energy will be given to the components. A larger voltage will make the bulbs brighter, the motor spin faster and the buzzer buzz louder! //*Safety – the pupils need to be aware that if they put too much voltage in a circuit the components can overheat and no longer work. As teachers we need to be aware never to use rechargeable batteries in circuit work as they can overheat, spilt apart and catch fire.// **Bulbs** light up when a current is passed through them because the filament in the bulb becomes so hot, due to high resistance, that it glows and gives out light. As more bulbs are added to a series circuit more resistance is created which causes the current to decrease and the bulbs to glow less brightly. **Buzzers** convert electrical energy into sound energy. A buzzer will only work if the red wire of the buzzer is connected to the positive side of a battery and the black wire is connected to the negative side. **Motors** convert electrical energy into kinetic energy. The motor will spin clockwise or anti-clockwise depending on how the wires are attached.

[Reference: the image above has been taken from @http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/science/physical_processes/electrical_circuits/read1.shtml]

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**Electrical Safety**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">As our role of teachers, we have a duty of care to our children. This means that we need to ensure the safety of all our children in our school and we can teach electrical safety from an early age. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">It is important that children are aware of the dangers electricity can cause them and how to prevent accidents from occuring.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">It is important to ensure that we teach safety of children in all areas of their education. For example, we could remind children that "Do we take drinks near computers?....no, because if we spill it we risk electrocution."

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Ask children which goods in their houses are electrical to assess their knowledge of electricity. Ensure that they know plug sockets are situated behind washing machines and microwaves to create a greater awareness of children's safety.

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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">These are the important key points to teach children about electrical safety:

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">1 - Do not use mains equipment that has frayed or damaged wires. If you do spot this, tell an adult straight away. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">2 - Do not put any liquids next to or near to electrical equipment. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">3 - Always switch electrical products off at the mains when you are finished with them. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">4 - Only use electrical goods with a safety mark on them - you can seen this on the outside of an electrical appliance. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">5 - Do not break open batteries, dispose of them safely or give them to a responsible adult.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">As a teaching activity for children, you could ask them to design a poster on "Top rules for using Electricity" and then give an oral presentation about what they have found out (maybe make use of ICT facilities to enhance learning). They could then partake in role play about the safety of electricity - and present it to Reception/Year 1 children.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**Cross-curricular links to electricity**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">There are many ways we can link electricity to other subjects. This should hopefully aid understanding and enjoyment of the subject by linking it to real-world examples and showing children a number of ways in which they might encounter electricity. As Barnes says, “our experience of the world is cross-curricular. Everything which surrounds us in the physical world can be seen and understood from multiple perspectives.” (Barnes, 2007). Using a cross-curricular or thematic approach to teaching might not just make learning more accessible, but might also help children to make links to the real world.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Maths – Measuring the flow of electricity. Could incorporate this into SC1 investigation, where pupils might want to measure the flow of electricity in different ciruits, answering questions like - will adding more bulbs change the electrical flow? Can electricity flow through different mediums? They could measure the flow of electricity investigating questions like these and could then put these results into a table.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Art and DT – drawing the circuits, making objects which can use electricity like lights on a truck. For example, we could have added lights or sounds to our monster truck!

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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Drama – acting as the electrons going around a circuit getting energy from the battery as we saw in the KS1 science lesson at Claremont. We thought to add to this you could break the circuit to demonstrate what would happen to the flow of energy.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">English – Spelling and pronunciation of key words, using these words in sentences, describing how electricity works orally.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">English and geography – debate the ethics of electricity. Does the way we create electricity cause problems for the environment, e.g. using coal, power plants. Should we be careful to monitor how much electricity we use by switching off lights we aren’t using etc.? What are the benefits of using wind or solar energy instead?

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Geography and PSHCE – Discussions on counties which don’t have ready access to electricity.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**Possible themed links**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">History - if our class was using modern history, or a time in modern history, as a theme, there are many ways we could include electricity. We could talk about the inventions of electrical items and how this affected us. Has it made our lives better? Why?

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">English - We could link this to literacy and have debates on this.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">ICT - This links nicely to ICT and all the major inventions and discoveries here too, such as the use of internet.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Maths - Putting these events in chronological order also helps with maths.


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">__Teaching Activity:__ **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">For Key Stage 1, electricity is taught at Year 2.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**Electricity** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">1. Pupils should be taught: <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">From: <span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">[]
 * 1) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">about everyday appliances that use electricity
 * 2) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">about simple series circuits involving batteries, wires, bulbs and other components [for example, buzzers, motors]
 * 3) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">how a switch can be used to break a circuit.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Following on from this, a possible teaching method of electricity could be set up practically in the classroom. As a starter activity to electricity, a class could be divided up into mixed ability groups and decide which appliances or household objects (brought in by the teacher) are electrical or non-electrical. For the High Attaining groups, they could perhaps explain why the goods are divided up like they are.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">From observations in school (Claremont Primary School, Year 2 lesson (29/09/11), a good task to show the children is as follows:

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">1- Place white sellotape on the floor in a rectangular shape to represent the wires of a "circuit". <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">2 - Make the shape of a bulb in the "circuit"; a circle with a diagonal cross through it. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">3 - Make a battery in the circuit (two parallel vertical lines at the top of the rectangle). <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">4 - Add a switch symbol in the circuit, by a break in the rectangular line and place a small piece of sellotape at a 45 degree angle from the circuit.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">The children need to know that electrons flow from one end of the battery, all the way around to the other terminal. One child pretends to press the switch closed, one pretends to be the battery, pushing each child as they pass by the "battery" to encourage them to walk around the circuit. When children reach the light bulb part, they could do a star jump in the circle with the cross in it, to show the energy excuded from the light bulb. (In real life this would be the light and heat energy). As the battery would slow down, the child as the "battery" could push the children circulating a little slower, to mimic the lesser energy levels the electrons when pushed around a circuit.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Here is a video showing how electrons flow in a circuit. <span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">[]

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**__References__**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Barnes, J. (2007). ‘Introduction’ in //Cross-Curricular Learning 3-14//, pp. 1- 16. London: Sage.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">@http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/science/physical_processes/electrical_circuits/read1.shtml

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