Saturday 6 April 2013

Using play dough circuits to teach about salt and light!

I'm not the most scientific of people, so the idea of play dough being a conductor of electricity never really occurred to me.  However, I came across this video on Pinterest recently and it really got me thinking!

Play dough conducts electricity because it contains salt and the electric circuit lights up the light- how perfect for teaching salt and light!

I picked up a kit (click here to see the one I got, though you can pick up the components separately!) that contained, amongst other things, a battery pack and some LED lights. 

This is what you will need:


  • Play dough (homemade is best as it has a high salt content)
  • Dough made with sugar and flour (I put a green tint in mine to differentiate it)
  • Battery pack (with batteries inside!)
  • LED light
Make 2 balls of the sugar dough and insert one wire into each.  Connect one leg of the LED to each ball (make sure that the longer leg goes to the red wire side).  Switch the battery pack on and nothing will happen to the LED light.


Now repeat the process with the play dough and when you switch the battery pack on, the light will come on!

This is a great visual to demonstrate that if we are like the salt in the play dough, we will conduct the light of God's love so that everyone around can see it.  

3 comments:

  1. Yay! Let me know how it goes. I'm using it in an assembly on Monday but with a slightly different context :-)

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  2. Great ideas !Thank you! I love this site.

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