# 4.2 Sweets and cups model

Read the instructions and imagine using the model. Answer the questions and consider how effective this model would be in helping children to relate new abstract ideas to situations they are already familiar with. How closely do the equipment and the process model an electric current moving through a circuit? What benefits would there be in using this model? Do you foresee any problems?

## Activity 13 Modelling a circuit (1)

Allow about 15 minutes

What you need:

- a packet of wrapped sweets
- two boxes
- two paper cups.

What to do:

Before you start, choose one person from the group to read out the instructions and the ‘applying your knowledge’ questions.

- Start with everyone, except one, in a circle. The one outside the circle is an observer.
- One person has a box with some wrapped sweets in it (the ‘battery’): they pass one sweet every second to the person on their right, who immediately passes each sweet to the person on their right, and so on. (It may help to have someone outside the circle keeping time by tapping the table once a second.)
- One person in the circle has a cup to represent a lamp/resistor. When a sweet arrives, they hold it in the cup for a second before they pass it on. Soon, all the sweets in the box are moving steadily around the circle. The observer stands behind the person on the left of the ‘battery’ and claps every time the person they are standing behind passes a sweet back to the battery. The rate the sweets are moving around is the current. Allow the sweets to go round several times, so that everyone settles into the rhythm before you make any changes.
- Now give a cup to a second person, so there are now two lamps/resistors in the circuit. What happens to the rate that sweets pass round the circuit (how often the observer claps) now?
- Now give someone else in the group a box, and half of the sweets. They also pass one sweet a second, so now there are two people passing sweets to the rest of the circle (so there are two sweets a second being passed). This increases the rate that sweets pass round the circle, and the observer claps twice as fast.

Applying your knowledge:

The following prompts will help you and children to evaluate this model:

- What forms the circuit in this model?
- What represents the current moving round the circuit?
- What represents energy in the circuit?
- Where does the current collect energy?
- In what ways is this model similar to your own ideas about electricity? In what ways is it different?

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### Answer

The circuit in this model is the circle of children. The current is the rate of moving sweets. The energy is the number of sweets. The current collects energy from the battery (box).

OpenLearn - Primary science: supporting children’s learning
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