Electricity & How to Use it Safely

Students investigated what is electricity, where it comes from, how it gets to our homes and the dangers of electricity in many different places in and around the home.  They did this through an independent study on the website: www.switchedonkids.org.uk  4th Grade Purple is always engaged and on task when it comes to computer based activities, and they are very good at eliciting required information from websites.

Different Sources of Energy

Independently, students took to our Macs to learn about the various places where energy comes from.  Going to the IPC link on the blog, students watched the video "Different Sources of Energy" and noted down the different forms they learned about.  We then collaborated on these and made a chart for our classroom.

Fire was debated after; it was natural gas misinterpreted by one ;)

Conductors & Insulators

In IPC today we experimented to see what items are conductors and which are insulators.  First we discussed that conductors allow electricity to flow easily through them and insulators do not.  Then, the students tested both a nail and a coin to see if these objects were conductors and insulators.  Next, they chose two other objects to test and then could freely test other objects throughout the school.  Finally, we created a t-chart and listed items we found to be conductors and insulators,  In the end we drew the conclusion that most conductors are metal and most insulators are not.

Simple Circuits

In IPC today the students got involved in an experiment where they were looking at simple circuits.  Using wires, light bulbs, and batteries the students created various circuits to see which ones were open and closed circuits.  Throughout their experiments they discovered that all wires need to be connected to create a circuit, and that when a circle is created, although the wires are all connected, does not create a circuit.  We are looking forward to exploring more with circuits.

Electrical Inventions Timeline

Students are looking at a variety of inventions created that use electricity.  Using a timeline, where they ordered the given times themselves, students started looking at ordering different electrical inventions by date.  They were encouraged to use critical thinking skills (ie if a microwave uses light then the light would be invented prior to the microwave) to help them decide where to order items, and it was great to see schema coming into play as well (some students asked when Thomas Edison was born to help them decide when his invention would've been invented).