Walnut Elementary students electrified by science

Andi Koch’s fourth grade class at Walnut Elementary did an amazing experiment with electricity and conductivity — her students got to be human circuits!

“The students have been so excited to learn about electrical energy! We started by becoming human circuits and then we worked with wires, batteries and light bulbs to figure out how to make a closed circuit,” she said. “The students found it to be more challenging than they thought, but they loved solving the problem! Next, we added random materials to our circuits to see if they were conductors or insulators. They are so ‘electrified’ when a circuit works!”

Koch challenged them to make a light bulb light up by using a battery, wire, and bulb.

Does anyone remember doing this when we were in school? Bet it was awesome! Connected by a wire, positive and negative sides of the battery ignite a light bulb.

And you learn that if you open the circuit, no electricity can be transmitted to the next element; applied further when you are older, remove a piece of track from your model railroad set and then watch the train engine stall before it can arrive at the station.

Koch’s students had smiles on their faces when they applied this lesson about how to light that tiny light bulb atop the battery. Applied lessons like this are what make science fun!

Koch deserves a gold star for teaching a fun lesson like this — maybe one day one of her students will become the next Nikola Tesla, inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, and futurist.