Basic Electricity

Hello.    I'm Gomer, your Guide Wizard. Together we are going to explore electricity and how it works. We will do some experiments and learn how to make it work for us, too. If you're ready, let's get started!

Our electricity comes from a battery. There are two TERMINALS on the battery that allow us to take the electricity from the battery. We connect WIRES from the terminals to where we need our electricity. These wires are called CONDUCTORS since they can carry electricity.

But simply running wires from the battery doesn't do much good. We need to make
our electricity do something after we get it here. So let's make it light a bulb!

For that we need to complete a CIRCUIT. A circuit is an unbroken path electricity
can follow from the source, through the bulb, and back to the battery. LIKE THIS!!

The battery is connected to the light bulb using wires The circuit is complete. Electricity flows from the battery through the black wire to the bulb. The CURRENT going through the bulb causes it to light Then the electricity returns to the battery through the red wire. The circuit is complete!

Use the drawing above and connect a bulb exactly as shown. Be sure to trim
the INSULATION from each end of the red and black wires before connecting them.

Your bulb should light. Once you've done that, you are ready to move on to the next page.