Scientific tuesdays

This semester I am following a blog called Scientific Tuesdays. This blog is done by one guy and he does a lot of activities that are geared toward entertaining children and are often fun crafts but have a lot of good science behind them. In the very first episode I watched he created neon solar powered lights for Halloween. He walked us through the craft part of painting the classes and then showed us how to disassemble a solar lamp. In disassembling the lamp he talked about how the lamp was a circuit and that the reason it worked with solar power was because all day the suns light was absorbed and stored. Once the light was turned on the wires connected let the energy run through them completing the circuit. The end result of the activity was having glowing lights that were solar powered.

The second episode I watched involved showing us how to make a trip wire. In this activity he took apart a toy candle light and showed how to break the circuit up. In breaking the circuit he had two loose wires that when connected to a long spare wire would then re complete the circuit. Of one end of the loose wire he has attached each side to a clip. The clip when closed allowed the circuit to flow but when was open did not. When the clip closed and the circuit was complete the light would flicker on. To test the trip wire he placed it across a doorway so that when someone walked by and pulled on the wire the clip would close. I thought this was a fun was to show students to a circuit works. This would be a fun activity or lab to do with students along with the glowing lamps.