Electricity is all around us.

We use electricity everywhere in our daily lives.

We use it to light our rooms, run our TVs, power our phones, and charge our laptops.

Do you know how electricity is brought to our homes?

And do you know why flipping a switch can turn on or off the light?

It’s done through an electricity circuit.

In this example, you will build a simple circuit using common household items to light up a LED bulb.

Let’s find out how it works.

Build A Simple Electric Circuit Experiment

Active Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

In this experiment, we will build a simple closed circuit conducting electricity.

Materials

small LED light (you can buy a single LED bulb or get one from an old Christmas string light decoration)
2 small button batteries
copper wire
scotch tape

Tools

wire cutter
adult supervision

Instructions

Cut two pieces of copper wire.
Stack the two button batteries together (facing the same direction so that + on one battery is touching the – on the other).
Tape the two pieces of wire onto the batteries, one on the top and one on the bottom.
Connect one wire to one leg of the LED light and the other wire to the other leg.
The LED light goes off. Voila! Now you have a simple electric circuit.
Try to connect and disconnect the wire from the LED light and see what happens.

Notes

A simple electric circuit is an electricity supply (e.g. batteries) connected to a series of electrical wires and electrical equipment (e.g. LED light) to form a circle.

When the circle is not complete, it is called an open circuit. The electrical equipment does not work in an open circuit.

When the circle is complete, electric current can travel from one point of the circle around the loop back to the same point. It is called a closed circuit. The equipment works in a closed circuit.