Circuit Activity

At the Thinkabit Lab, students love the Human Circuit activity. We've listed teacher instructions below:

1. Arrange students into a large circle. Make sure that each student can hold hands with both of their neighbors
2. Prompt each student to hold hands or wrists with the students on either side. Make sure there is skin-to-skin contact between each student. Ask students to roll up their sleeves up if needed. Tell students that in order for the activity to work they need to continue holding hands or wrists unless explicitly told otherwise
3. Ask for students to share words they would use to describe what they just formed. Accept all responses.
4. Introduce the vocabulary word circuit. Scientists and engineers might use the word circuit to describe this. An electrical circuit is a pathway that electric charge can flow through. Scientists and engineers use the term electric current to describe the movement of electric charge through a circuit. Circuits are always closed conductive paths. Electric current can move through human bodies and even through skin. Since you are all touching your neighbors, electric current could flow around the entire circuit
5. Introduce batteries and electric current. Batteries store energy. When you place a battery into an electrical circuit, the stored energy can cause electric current to flow through the circuit. Batteries and other things like them are sometimes called power sources.
6. Introduce the UFO ball. Show students the UFO ball and tell students this UFO ball contains a battery that can cause electric current to flow through the circuit they have just made with their bodies.. Tell students that the UFO ball also has lights that light up when electric current flows through it
7. Bring students attention to the metal pieces on the UFO ball and introduce positive and negative terminals. The UFO ball has two different metal pieces just like a battery. In batteries and other electronic devices these are called terminals. The two terminals are called positive and negative terminals. Electric current flows through the electrical circuit from the positive side to the negative side of a power source.
8. Place the UFO ball between two students. Choose two students and instruct them to stop holding hands with each other. Have one student hold one of the two metal pieces of the UFO ball. Have the other student hold the other metal piece of the UFO ball. Be careful not to have these two students have any physical contact between each other, otherwise they will complete the circuit on their own.
9. Give students a moment to observe the UFO ball lighting up. Make sure students continue to touch their neighbors or the UFO ball will stop lighting up.
10. Tell students why the UFO ball lights up. The UFO ball only lights up if the stored energy from the battery causes electric current to flow from one side of the UFO ball to the other through a complete circuit.
11. Prompt one student to stop holding their neighbors’ hands. Starting on either side of the UFO ball, have the student next to the one holding the UFO ball release the hand of one or both of their neighbors
12. Ask students why they think the UFO ball stopped working. If necessary, remind students that electric current flows through circuits and closed circuits have conductive paths from the positive and negative sides of a power source. Highlight that when the student stopped touching their neighbors, they broke the circuit and electric current could no longer flow from one side of the UFO ball to the other.
13. Allow each student individually to break the circuit. Make sure all the students are holding hands or wrists with both of their neighbors. Continue through the circuit prompting one student at a time to stop touching their neighbors and observe the UFO ball stop working. Re-form the circuit and move on to the next student until each student has had the opportunity to break the circuit.

Before this activity

• View the implementation of Human Circuit at the Thinkabit Lab (https://vimeo.com/203531256/6f1bf434e8)

Teacher Materials

• UFO Ball

Extension Activity

1. Prompt students to touch their neighbors’ cheek, shoulder, hair, or braces.
2. Test whether electric current can flow through certain materials by having two students in the circuit not touch each other but both hold onto the same material. You might consider testing a metal wire (make sure both students hold the metal ends), the coating of a wire (make sure both students hold the plastic coating), or a plastic straw. Tell students that materials that electric current can flow through are called conductors and materials that electric current cannot flow through are called insulators.
3. Tell students some examples of things that are caused by electric current flowing through a circuit. Tell students that when electric current flows through a circuit, you can place other components in the stream and electric current will flow through them. Tell students that electric current flowing through a circuit is what causes light bulbs to light up, radios to make sound, or some motors to move around. Tell students they will be making an electrical circuit that will cause an LED to light up.
4. Ask students for other examples of things that might be caused by electric current flowing through circuits.