Electrifying workshop with Mr B.

Today, Year 6 kicked off their electricity topic with a fantastic, hands-on workshop with Mr B.  First, Mr B. explained some key vocabulary such as voltage, watts, current and circuit. Using our prior knowledge, we all knew that a circuit had to be complete in order for the components to work - for example, for the bulb to light up.  Mr B. demonstrated this with an 'electricity stick', which lit up when a group of people were holding hands, touching noses or even touching elbows!  

Next, Mr B. ventured to atomic level to explain how electricity worked - using some of us to model electrons.  This was all made clear when we watched a demonstration of static electricity, which caused our hair to stand up when we rubbed a balloon on our jumpers. After this, Mr B. gave the us a whistle-stop tour of the history of electricity, and showed us Michael Faraday's invention of an electromagnet and an insight into the future with dynamos - a mechanism that you may find in your wind-up camping torches.

Our final session was the hands-on part! We split off into pairs and used circuit boards to complete a series of challenges where we integrated different components into our circuits and observed the changes that occurred. Our favourite part was using the buzzer in our circuits although unfortunately, it did leave some of the teachers with a headache! The final challenge was making our own wire game, competing hard against our partner to not touch the wire otherwise the dreaded buzzer would make a noise.

Overall, it was a fantastic session and was a brilliant introduction to our topic. I can't wait to use some more circuit equipment during our SC1 investigation over the next week.

Lilly D