Year 6 continued their Science learning today by finding out all about electrical conductors and insulators. We started the lesson by looking at an electrical wire. Which part of the wire was a conductor and which was an insulator? Why is this necessary? From this discussion the class developed a shared understanding and definitions of both conductors and insulators. This led to an activity whereby the children had to navigate a paper based maze, traversing from start to finish only by shading in electrical conductors which revealed to them a secret message with scrambled letters. With this final clue unlocked, all that was left for the children to do was to put their theory to the test.

They  included the various items they had shaded into a simple circuit to find out if they worked as electrical conductors or not. This way they could check their own work and prove their answers right or wrong there and then in the lesson.

They finished up by bringing the learning full circle and discussed some purposeful designs which include electrical conductors and insulators such as the plastic surround of a computer monitor and the exposed metal of a phone charger and the charging port.