Science: Complex Circuits Investigation

In Science, our topic has been ‘Electricity: Complex Circuits’. In this topic, we have built on our prior learning about electrical circuits from Year 4 and also on the Scientific enquiry skills that we have been developing during our Science lessons since we were in the Nursery!

We are all already confident with constructing electrical circuits and can also now explain how components function and use recognised symbols when representing  circuits as diagrams.

Today, we were given  the task of investigating how the the brightness of a bulb is affected by with the number of/ voltage of cells(batteries) used in the circuit. With our learning partners, we had to plan and carry out the investigation, record our results and draw conclusions independently as well as ensuring that we were carrying out a fair test. 

 We all correctly predicted that: ‘The greater the voltage, the brighter the bulb’ but the challenging part was coming up with ideas for how to accurately measure the brightness of the bulb as the results had to be recorded in numbers. Every group was able to find a measurable (and creative!)  way of comparing the brightness of the bulbs. We also all noticed that there is a maximum voltage/number of batteries that can be added before the light stops getting any brighter. We were surprised to find that some groups had different results  due to the variations in wattage of the bulbs used.

Next, we are looking forward to investigating how to change the speed of motors and the volume of buzzers as well as the effects of changing the position of switches.