Lesson video

Hi everybody, It is miss Simkin back again for your next Science lesson, this is lesson six, and our last lesson in our unit on electrical circuits.

So if you haven't already make sure that you've watched and you've completed lesson one, lesson two, lesson three, lesson four and lessons five.

If you haven't yet? Then it would be a good idea to go and do these on the Oak National website, first, before you watch this lesson.

If you have done those lessons with me before then great, let's get started on today's lesson.

Our lesson question today is, how much do we rely on electricity? And this is the lesson agenda that we're going to follow today.

We are going to start with our star words and a bit of quick recap, like we always do.

Then we're going to look at different sources of electricity and then we're going to do a sorting activity, and then we're going to think about what life would be like without electricity.

For this lesson, you will need please, a piece of paper, a pencil, a coloured pencil, and a ruler.

If you don't have those things? Could you pause the video and go and get them now, so you're ready to begin,.

Great, these are our star words for today's lesson.

I'm going to save them and then you're going to say them electricity, battery, mains, appliance, good job! We're going to talk about what all those words mean during the lesson.

So let's start with a recap, we have been looking so far at electrical circuits and I've got a picture of an electrical circuit here, there's something wrong with this electrical circuit it's not working, the bulb is not lit can you spot why? You can use your finger and point at the problem on the screen, please.

Well done if you spotted it.

It just because the switch is open, why is it a problem, if the switch is open? What do we need for electricity to flow around the circuit and giving you a hint with my actions.

Great, we need a complete loop and if the switch is open and there's a gap in the circuit and there's not a complete loop, well done if you spotted it.

So, we've learned already that electricity is a type of energy and that for an electricity to work? It needs to always be moving in a loop, and that loop is called an electrical circuit.

Now this energy can be used to power lots of different things, so far in our lessons, we've just been looking at electrical circuits that can power little light bulbs or buzzers.

But today we're going to look at how this electrical circuit this electrical loop can be used to power lots of different electrical items, that you would find around your school or around your home, like toasters, kettles, cookers, televisions, computers, tablets.

So I'm going to take what we've learned, we're going to see how it applies to our everyday life.

We're going to start by looking at some different electrical appliances.

Now, an appliance is a device or piece of equipment designed to perform a task.

So for example, a washing machine is an appliance, what is the task? What's the job that a washing machine is designed to do? Tell your screen.

Yeah, to wash our clothes.

What about a toothbrush, is a toothbrush and appliance? Yes, a toothbrush is an appliance.

What's the job that a toothbrush is designed to do? To brush our teeth.

What about a notebook? Is a notebook and appliance? Yes, it is because it's designed for a specific job, what's the specific job of a notebook? It's for us to write it or to collect our ideas in, okay? Some appliances are electrical, like the washing machine and some appliances are not electrical, like a notebook, for example.

So how can we tell the difference, between an appliance that's electrical and appliance, that's not electrical.

Well, there's no power supply in a non electrical appliance, I don't have to plug my notebook into anything, I don't have to switch it on to make it work, whereas with the washing machine, it does need to be plugged into something and I can switch it on and off.

My control here is an appliance, okay? I can switch it on and off, it doesn't need to be plugged into anything, but I know that it has a power supply because if I open up the back of it, I'll see the batteries in sight, okay? So those are the things you want to think about, but we're trying to decide if something is a non electrical appliance, it's not electrical, or if it is an electrical appliance, so you think about, does it have a power source? So either a battery or something to plug it into, or can I switch it on and off? Those are two hints that can help us, okay? We're going to do that now, we're going to sort some appliances into electrical and non electrical.

So could please draw this table before we begin, so you've got one column for electrical, one column for non electrical.

Remember to use your ruler please.

Pause the video and draw this table for me now.

Great, okay, now I'm going to show you a picture of six appliances and I want you to sort them into your table.

You can either write or draw them, I don't mind.

Here are your six appliances, you've got a TV, a fork, a toaster, a phone, a notebook and a candle, can you sort them into electrical and non electrical, please? Pause the video and have a go for me now.

Great, let's see if you were correct? So our electrical appliances were toaster, TV and phone those are things that you can turn on and off, and that have a power supply.

Our non electrical appliances are a fork, a candle, and a notebook.

A candle is maybe one that could be a bit confusing because I guess you could think about blowing it out and lighting it as turning it on and off, but it's not the same because you're not using a switch or a button to do that and there's no power supply, there's nothing to plug a candle into or batteries to keep it operated, okay? Well done, If you've got those correct, give yourself a tick and your different coloured pencil, if you made a mistake, that's okay, take this opportunity to correct your answers and pause the video, if you need some more time to do that.

Great.

Now we're going to look at some different types of electricity.

So we spoke about already and I've been using the term power supply and that power supply can come from different places.

The two main places that that power supply can come from? Are called batteries and our mains electricity, I'm going to explain what both of those are.

So battery electricity might be one that we're most familiar with.

Now when we're building electrical circuits in science lessons, we actually call a single battery a cell and when we have more than one, we call it to the battery.

But most of the time when we're talking about electrical appliances, we have more than one, so this is my TV remote.

I've just taken the back off and you can see that I have two cells in here, so it is a battery, okay? A battery or a cell is a source of electricity and this is the type of electricity, this type of electricity, you need to insert a battery into the appliance so the battery will always be inserted into the appliance and batteries are really good for powering electrical appliances that need less energy and that needed to be portable.

So for example, my mobile phone is powered by a battery is in the back here, I'm not going to open it up because I wouldn't know how to put it back together.

But it's important that my phone is portable, it's called a mobile phone for that reason.

If it was plugged into something all the time, then it wouldn't be very useful because I wouldn't be able to take it out to my house where it's plugged in, okay? So we use battery electricity for things that are new to be portable, and that don't need very much energy.

The other type of electricity is mains electricity, and you'll have lots of examples of this in your house or in your classroom.

So mains electricity is supplied to our homes from something called the national grid and we'll look at this, this journey, this electric journey in more detail on the next slide.

To use this type of electricity, you need to plug the appliance into a circuit.

So, you can see on the screen, this is the circuit and the circuit will be inside the wall, okay? Or be like on the wall and you need to plug, this is the plug, you need to plug the appliance in for it to work.

Mains electricity is best for appliances that need lots of energy, so things like washing machines or like the ceiling lights in your house, which are on a lot of the time, okay? They need to be plugged in, they need to be connected to the mains electricity.

And when an appliance is plugged into mains electricity and switched on, then the electrical loop is complete, and that's when it works, that's when it turns on.

But both of those things need to happen, it needs to be plugged in and the switch needs to be on.

So, most energy from mains electricity comes from power stations, there are other ways of generating this electricity, more renewable ways like wind farms or tidal energy, which is energy that comes from the waves or solar energy collected or collected through solar panels, okay? But a big portion of this comes from power stations, which you might have seen when you've been driving on the motorway, they're normally like big chimney style buildings, and you can often see smoke coming out of them.

So, this is a diagram that shows you how we get the electricity from a power station in to our homes, and it's important that this is one electrical loop because we've learned that we need electricity to flow in a complete loop for it to work, that's quite easy for us to imagine, when we can see the whole loop in a small electrical circuit in front of us but actually, the electricity that's coming into our homes, from power stations from the national grid is in a complete loop as well, okay? So this is the power station, this is actually showing a hydroelectric power plant, that's getting its energy from water, but don't worry about this bit.

Let's just focus on this as the power plant, where the energy is being generated, okay? So that's step one, the power plant generates this electricity, then you can see these red wires are where that electricity is being transmitted, okay? And these transmission lines, carry the electricity over really long distances, okay? A couple of different things happen along the way in transformers, but we're not going to worry about that today, okay? We're just going to follow this journey through the transmission lines, okay? And it follows these transmission lines until it reaches your home.

And then when you plug appliances in, you're connecting it to this mains electricity.

They can then travel back along these wires to complete the circuit.

We're going down the other side now and back into the national grid and back into the power plant, okay? I've got two questions for you, can you please fill in the gaps for each definition? So in battery electricity, this type of electricity, you need to insert a into the so you think about my remote, what was I inserting into it? And with mains electricity to use this type of electricity you need to plug into a Pause the video and answer these for me now, please.

Great, let's check your answers.

So for battery electricity, this type of electricity, you need to insert a battery into an appliance.

And with mains electricity, you need to use this type of electricity, you need to plug the appliance into a circuit.

Applied was the word that was a bit tricky there don't worry if you made a mistake, just use your different coloured pen to correct it.

Now, pause the video and give yourself a tick or make your correction.

Great, okay, that brings us to our last activity of this lesson, which is a sorting activity.

You're going to use your environment, whether you're at school or you're at home to do this.

Now, before you begin, can you draw this table please? So you need two columns, one with mains powered electricity, and one with battery powered, sorry.

Main power means powered appliances, and one with battery powered appliances.

Can you use your ruler and pause the video to draw this table for me, please? Great, okay and what you're going to do, is you are going to go on a bit of a appliance hunt and I want you to go around your house or your school, wherever you are at the moment and I want you to find appliances that are electrical and I want you to see whether they are mains powered or battery powered.

So do they have batteries in them, like this remote, in which case, I'd put this in my battery powered column, I'd write TV remote, or are they mains power? Do they plug into the wall? I want you to see how many you can find of each, but everybody needs to find at least five of each please.

Before you begin, we've just got some electrical rules to go through.

So, electricity can be dangerous, so it's really important that you follow these rules, when conducting this activity.

First of all, no liquid should ever be near electrical items. So make sure you're not having drinks or glasses of water or anything near electrical items and your hands should never be wet when you're touching electrical items, It's really important, otherwise you could get an electric shock.

The next thing is never stick anything into an electrical circuit apart from the plug of the appliance that you are plugging in, okay? So nothing else should go into that electrical circuit not your fingers, not any other objects, it's really important, or again, you could get an electric shock.

And lastly, make sure that if you are plugging and unplugging an appliance, you always turn them off before you do that, and you never pull the chord, okay? For this activity, you actually shouldn't need to turn, you actually shouldn't need to plug or unplug anything.

You should be able to do this activity just by looking at things and taking notes.

You don't even really need to pick them up or touch them, unless it's maybe something that's not plugged in, you want to check and see if it's got an opening at the back, where a battery would go, okay? Can you now, pause the video and complete your sorting activity, see how many appliances you can find.

Great, good job, I hope you had fun hunting around your house.

We have one more thing to do, we are going to think about how life, would be without electricity, we use electricity for so much, think about all those appliances that you have on your list.

What would you do if you didn't have those appliances, how would you wash your clothes? How would you see you when it was dark, okay? I we'd like you please to draw a spider diagram, so that's where you put the question in the middle of the page.

What would life be without electricity? And then you write your ideas along the edge.

So for example, one of the things you could write is we wouldn't have washing machines, we'd have to wash our clothes by hand.

Can you think of other things that would be different in our life, if we didn't have electricity? Pause the video and answer your question now, please.

Great, I hope you got lots of ideas down, I'm not going to show you the answers, because there were lots of possible things for this, but some things that you could have had, where we spoke about washing machines, I think cooking food and storing food is quite a big one, if we didn't have electricity, we wouldn't have fridges, we wouldn't have ovens.

So we'd have to be really careful with the food that we eat, that we ate it quickly and that it was safe to eat without cooking, it would change how we eat food really drastically.

Other things that you might have put are, the way that we search information would be very different because we rely on our phones and TVs and laptops and tablets for the information that we're getting, and we wouldn't have any of those things without electricity.

You might also have written something about light.

We use electricity a lot for light sources, we don't even think about the fact that it's really dark, sometimes by about four or five in the afternoon in winter, and it doesn't really bother us because we can just turn the lights on in our house.

There, of course, light sources that we could use without electricity, like handles and things like that, but it would be quite hard to light your whole house with candles all through the winter.

And so we'd be quite limited to the daylight hours and things that we can do in the daylight, if we didn't have electricity, those are just some ideas you might have had, okay.

I'd like you to use those ideas now to answer this question for me.

Are humans, so are we reliant on electricity? So do we use electricity for lots of things? And do we rely on those things? Would we find it really hard, if electricity wasn't there anymore? I'd like you to have a go at answering this question, I'd like your answer to be at least three sentences.

So you can either answer, yes humans are reliant on electricity and explain why.

So for example, yes I think humans are reliant on electricity because we use electricity for all of these things and then give some examples.

Then you could go on to say, if we didn't have electricity, then we wouldn't be able to do and give some examples of that.

If you don't think, we are relying on electricity, then I would probably disagree with you.

I think we probably are, but you can still write that as an answer as long you can back up your answer, why are we not reliant on electricity, okay? Can you pause the video and answer that question for me now? Great, well done.

You have worked really hard today and throughout this whole unit of electricity, I'm incredibly proud of the work that you have produced and all that you've learned.

If you would like to share your work with Oak National? Then you can, by asking a parent or carer to share your work for you and tagging @Oaknational or #LearnwithOak you can also tag at @Teach_STEMinism, which is, which means that I will be able to see your work on Twitter too.

Remember to do your end of lesson quiz, before you go.

And most importantly, remember to have a fantastic rest of your day and hopefully I will see you back here for another science lesson soon, bye everybody.