What Conducts Electricity_

Hi, I am Jared, and welcome to Fun Science Demonstrations for Young Learners. A little message Morse code, are you getting it? Our big idea today is that electricity needs a path to follow, and sometimes that path is easy to follow, and sometimes it is not so easy. Some things conduct electricity, and some things do not conduct electricity. And what is neat today is we get to experiment and find out what things are good conductors and what things are not such good conductors. How do I do that? How do I show you electricity? I could bite down on this and get shocked. The easiest way is a light bulb. Watch. Our pathway, we have electricity flowing through the pathway, lighting up the light bulb. Sometimes it is easy. Sometimes things really allow the electricity to flow through it. We call them conductors. Take a look at this wire. I have a little metal end, and it is covered with plastic. If I connect metal to metal, whoa, electricity flows. It must be a good conductor. Watch what happens when I touch the metal to the plastic. No light bulb. The electricity is not flowing through that plastic. It is an insulator. It does not really conduct it well. So I have all of these cool things here to really test and see. Do they conduct electricity or do they not? Let us start with my favorite, the hammer. We have the metal part. Let us try it. Let us create our pathway. Oh, look at that. It is flowing through our pathway. It conducts. What about the wooden part? Wood, wood. Electricity is not flowing. That must be an insulator. Wood, it must be an insulator. The screwdriver, another tool of my liking. Wait, the metal on the hammer worked. I wonder if the metal on the screwdriver is going to work. Touch and touch. Hey, it is flowing. It must be a conductor. What about the plastic? The wood did not work. Let us try the plastic. Let us form our pathway. It is not flowing. We call it an insulator. Another tool, a C-clamp. Metal, it is working. Conductor, what about a wooden popsicle stick? It is not conducting. Insulator, a glass marble. Alright, touch. Woo, it is rolling. Touch. It is not working. It must be an insulator. A clothes pin. We have wood, we have metal. Hmm, I am thinking the wood does not conduct. It is an insulator. What about the metal band? Touch, touch. We have light. Electricity. Science is so cool. Hey, if you want to learn more, check out the links right below our video.