light bulb with battery experiment

Battery and Bulb Experiment for Kids

Use this battery and bulb experiment to teach kids about electrical circuits. For each pair of students, you’ll need a 1.5-volt light bulb, a battery, and a strip of aluminum foil. To promote inquiry, just tell them to light the bulb!

Ms. Sneed Uses a Battery and Bulb Experiment to Promote Inquiry

Our favorite fourth grade teacher, Ms. Sneed, grinned. “You’re going to love this physical science experiment!” she told her student teacher, Mr. Grow. “The first activity in our electricity unit involves batteries and bulbs. It’s super simple. We give each pair of students a light bulb, a battery, and a strip of aluminum foil. Then we ask them to find as many ways as possible to light the bulb.”

“Isn’t that too easy?” asked Mr. Grow.

“Not at all. You’ll see. Help me gather the materials. This fun little activity will scaffold kids to simple circuits , conductors and insulators , and finally, series and parallel circuits .”

Mr. Grow headed to the science cabinet. After locating the bin labeled “electricity,” he began digging out the materials.

“Wait just a minute,” laughed Ms. Sneed. “We need batteries and bulbs with similar voltage.”

“Huh?”

“We’ll use these rechargeable AA batteries. If you look closely, you’ll see that they have 1.2 volts. If we don’t have enough of those batteries, we can also use other AA, A, C, or D batteries. Although they’re different sizes, they all have 1.5 volts.”

Mr. Grow looked surprised. “I thought the bigger batteries were stronger.”

“Nope. And we need bulbs with similar voltage. For example, this bulb works in a lamp. It has 120 volts. Obviously, a 1.5-volt battery would not light it.” She pulled out a small package of 1.5-volt light bulbs. “But it will light these.”

Mr. Grow still looked a little confused. “If you try it yourself,” Ms. Sneed said, “you’ll understand the concept so much better. Why don’t you join a lab group tomorrow? Then you can do the experiment with the kids.”

Try, Try Again – Teaching Persistence Through Inquiry

The following day, Mr. Grow sat beside a fourth grade student named Marissa. “This is easy,” she said. “We just connect the light bulb to the battery with the aluminum foil.”

Marissa held one end of the foil on the positive end of the battery and the other on the metal tip of the bulb. Unfortunately, nothing happened. “What?” she cried. “Our bulb is broken. Ms. Sneed! Our bulb doesn’t work. Please give us another one.”

Mr. Grow noticed that several kids were calling to Ms. Sneed for new bulbs or batteries. She just smiled and nodded. “Hmm. I’m sure they work. Before the lab, I tested them all. Keep experimenting.”

Marissa huffed in annoyance. “Why won’t she just tell us? Can you give me a hint, Mr. Grow?”

“Sorry, Marissa, I don’t even know myself. Let’s keep trying.”

Marissa decided to hold one end of the foil on the positive end of the battery and one on the negative end. “Ouch! That burns!” she moaned.

Ms. Sneed evidently heard Marissa’s cry. “If it’s hot, let go!” she told the class.

“Hey, Marissa,” said Mr. Grow. “Heat is energy. That tells us something is happening. Let’s try setting the light bulb on top of the foil.” Still nothing happened.

Now Mr. Grow was getting frustrated with the battery and bulb experiment. But Ms. Sneed insisted that they keep trying. Inquiry learning really required persistence!

Then, as Mr. Grow held the bulb on top of the positive end, Marissa connected one end of the foil to the negative end. As she was trying to touch the other end to the tip of the bulb, the foil brushed the side of the bulb — and it lit!

Finding Additional Solutions

Around the room, Mr. Grow could hear shouts. “We did it!” students yelled. As he looked at the pairs, he could see some with lit bulbs (and faces) and others still working.

“Once you find a solution,” Ms. Sneed said, “draw it on your lab sheet . Then try to find more. I’ll tell you that there are at least four configurations that will light the bulb.”

Mr. Grow noticed that Ms. Sneed was now moving to each group to ensure that they found at least one solution. Once they experienced success, she quickly moved away to let them find more configurations on their own.

Ms. Sneed’s Class Makes Generalizations About the Battery and Bulb Experiment

“Let’s finish up!” Ms. Sneed called.

A few minutes later, she called everyone to attention. “I’d like to make a classroom display.” She held up a paper light bulb and a paper battery. “Raise your hand if you’d like to share a configuration that worked. Then I’ll call you up here to show it. After you arrange the battery and bulb, we’ll glue it to this construction paper. Finally, you’ll draw a line with with a marker to show how the aluminum foil connected them.”

Mr. Grow watched as Ms. Sneed called kids to the front of the classroom. She asked the other students to confirm whether it would work or not. Soon, six solutions* hung on the wall.

“Now we’ll make a generalization,” said Ms. Sneed. “Who can explain how to light a bulb with a battery and a piece of aluminum foil?”

After a few minutes of wordsmithing, Ms. Sneed typed their statement and hung it with their generalizations:

• One end of the foil must touch one end of the battery.
• The other end of the foil must touch one end of the battery.
• The other end of the foil must touch the side or tip of the bulb.
• The side or tip of the battery that isn’t touching the foil must touch the other end of the battery.

Mr. Grow smiled. Finally, he understood how to make a circuit. More than that, he understood Ms. Sneed’s motivation for using inquiry in her science class.

Ms. Sneed Explains the Light Bulbs and Batteries Experiment

“We’re not done yet!” exclaimed Ms. Sneed.

She picked up a marker and drew one configuration from the day’s experiment. “This is an electrical circuit . Remember when we learned about atoms? Well, in a circuit, electrons flow from atom to atom. This is called current electricity .

“The battery supplies the force for this current. It has two electrodes, the anode and cathode.” Ms. Sneed pointed to the negative and positive ends of the battery. “When the foil is attached to both, chemical reactions occur inside the battery. One reaction causes the anode to become negatively charged. The other causes the cathode to become positively charged. This forces electrons to flow through the foil from the anode to the cathode.”

Mr. Grow listened with interest. Evidently, Ms. Sneed had reviewed the process and vocabulary prior to the lesson. She was definitely not flying by the seat of her pants.

“However,” Ms. Sneed continued, “our circuit also has a resistor: this light bulb.” She pointed to the drawing and picked up her marker. “The electrons flow from the anode through the foil then to the side of the bulb.” Ms. Sneed traced the path. “If you look closely, you’ll see that the filament inside the bulb is attached to the side. It continues through the filament and out through the tip. Then it goes back into the battery.”

“The path must be closed,” Ms. Sneed said. “It’s like your circulatory system. Your heart forces your blood to move through your veins and arteries in a continual cycle.”

Mr. Grow sighed. When he watched Ms. Sneed teach, he realized that even the smallest details helped kids understand. Using an analogy drove the concept home. With practice, he hoped he could become a master teacher too.

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How to Light an Led Bulb with a Battery

Last Updated: September 30, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by wikiHow Staff . Our trained team of editors and researchers validate articles for accuracy and comprehensiveness. wikiHow's Content Management Team carefully monitors the work from our editorial staff to ensure that each article is backed by trusted research and meets our high quality standards. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 143,412 times. Learn more...

Lighting an LED light bulb up with a battery is a fun experiment you can do to learn about electrical circuits and direct current (DC) electricity. It’s not a practical way to power an actual light source, as regular batteries do not supply enough voltage to power a strong enough light bulb. However, with just a few basic supplies, you can have some fun creating different circuits between a battery and an LED bulb. Once you get the hang of making a simple circuit, you can modify it with things like switches or multiple batteries. You can even try creating a natural battery out of lemons and pieces of metals to demonstrate how acidity works with metal to generate power!

Powering a Bulb with a Household Battery

• You can use a small LED bulb from a flashlight, for example.
• To power a higher voltage light bulb, you would need to string together multiple batteries of 12V or higher, which isn’t safe to do for this experiment as you could get an electrical shock.

The instructions below are for LED bulbs . If you follow those steps using a regular LED, remember they are polarized. Always connect the longest leg to the positive terminal of the battery and the shortest leg to the negative terminal. Else the LED won't light or could be damaged. Do not use a battery with a voltage over 3V, else your LED might explode.

• You can use any standard household battery, such as a AA, AAA, C or D battery, which are all 1.5V batteries.
• You could also just hold the wire in place if you don’t have any electrical tape to temporarily connect them. There is no risk of getting electrocuted by such a low voltage.

Tip : If you want to make a more permanent connection, you can solder the wire in place.

• The bulb lights up because you are making a complete electrical circuit between the positive and negative terminals of the battery and the 2 wires that are inside the light bulb’s base.
• You can also try this experiment with just 1 wire by touching the light bulb directly to 1 of the batteries terminals for 1 of the connections. For example, if you tape an electrical wire between the bottom of the bulb and 1 of the batteries terminal, you can light up the bulb by touching the side of the bulb’s base to the other terminal.

Adding Variations to the Experiment

• A toggle switch is an electrical switch with a knob that you can flip back and forth to turn an accessory on and off. It works by blocking or connecting 2 wires in the electrical circuit.

• Most battery holders have an ON/OFF switch, so you can both carry your experiment around and turn the light bulb on and off easily!

Tip : You could also get a miniature bulb holder to make your experiment even more sleek and portable!

• If you choose to add more light bulbs into the circuit, it doesn’t matter which batteries you connect them to. Since all of the batteries are wired together, they essentially work as a single more powerful battery.
• Keep in mind that if you use too many batteries to power just 1 light bulb, you could blow it out. For example, if you use 6 1.5V household batteries to power a single 3V light bulb, it might blow out. This is not dangerous to you, but the light bulb won't work anymore.

Making a Lemon Battery

• An LED bulb from a small flashlight or a small diode, like from a string of Christmas lights, works well for this experiment.
• The lemon juice inside the lemons provides an acidic solution to create a battery, like battery acid does inside normal batteries.
• Once you try this experiment with lemons, you can experiment with other acidic fruits or even potatoes! [8] X Research source

• This will ensure that the metals you insert inside of the lemons will make contact with as much acidic lemon juice as possible.

• It doesn’t matter how long the pieces of wire and nails are, as long as you can stick them far enough into the lemons and there is still enough sticking up to connect electrical wires to.

• Make sure that the first lemon in the chain has a free piece of copper while the last lemon in the chain has a free nail.

Tip : You could also use electrical wires with alligator clips to make these connections.

• You could tape the wire to the bottom with a small piece of electrical tape if you want to hold it in place.
• If you are using an LED diode that has 2 legs instead of a bottom, just wrap this wire around the longer of the legs.

• If you’re doing this experiment with an LED diode that has 2 legs instead of a side that you can touch the wire to, wrap this wire around the shorter of the legs.
• Since lemon batteries don’t produce a lot of power, the light will probably be pretty dim. You can experiment by using more lemons to make a more powerful battery and see how much brighter you can get the bulb to light up.

Expert Q&A

Things you’ll need, powering a bulb with a normal battery.

• Low-voltage LED bulb
• Household battery
• Copper electrical wire
• Toggle switch
• Battery holder
• Low-voltage LED bulbs
• Household batteries
• Copper electrical wires
• Copper wire
• Galvanized nails

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://van.physics.illinois.edu/ask/listing/574
• ↑ https://sciencing.com/light-bulb-work-battery-4798212.html
• ↑ https://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/circuits/Lesson-2/Requirements-of-a-Circuit
• ↑ https://www.scienceworld.ca/resource/lemon-battery/
• ↑ https://science-u.org/experiments/lemon-batteries.html
• ↑ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/generate-electricity-with-a-lemon-battery/

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Potato Battery Experiment: Powering a Light Bulb With a Potato

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Did you know you could power a light bulb with a potato? The chemical reactions that take place between two dissimilar metals and the juices in the potato create a small amount of voltage that can power a very small electrical device [source: MadSci].

Follow the instructions below to make a potato battery .

How to Make a Potato Battery

The science behind potato battery experiments, using potato batteries to power other devices.

• One potato (ideally large)
• Two pennies
• Two galvanized nails (zinc-plated nails)
• Three pieces of copper wire
• A very small light bulb or LED light

What You Need to Do:

• Cut the potato in half, then cut a small slit into each half, large enough to slide a penny inside.
• Wrap some copper wire around each penny a few times. Use a different piece of wire for each penny.
• Stick the pennies in the slits you cut into the potato halves.
• Wrap some of the third copper wire around one of the zinc-plated nails and stick the nail into one of the potato halves.
• Take the wire connected to the penny in the half of potato with the nail and wrap some of it around the second nail. Stick that second nail into the other potato half.
• When you connect the two loose ends of the copper wires to the light bulb or LED, it will complete the electrical circuit and light up.

Be careful when handling the wires, because there is a small electric charge running through the wires. Hydrogen gas may also be a byproduct of the chemical reactions in the potato, so don't perform the experiment near open flames or strong sources of heat [source: MadSci].

Batteries store energy for later use, but where does the energy come from? All batteries rely on a chemical reaction between two metals.

In a potato battery, the reaction — between the zinc electrodes in the galvanized nails, the copper in the penny, and the acids in the potato — produces chemical energy.

The potato doesn't produce electricity, but it does allow the electron current to flow from the copper end to the zinc end of the battery.

You can try using multiple potatoes to power other battery-equipped devices, like a clock.

In the battery compartment, connect the potato with a copper coin inside to the positive terminal (marked with a "+") and a potato with a galvanized nail inside to the negative terminal (marked with a "-"). Learn more about how to make a potato clock.

With any potato battery experiment, if your battery doesn't power your device on the first try, you can try increasing the number of potatoes. You can also use other fruits and vegetables to make batteries — lemon, which is highly acidic, is a popular choice.

"Food Batteries." MadSci Network. Mar. 14, 1998. (Sep. 20, 2023). https://www.madsci.org/experiments/archive/889917606.Ch.html

Potato Battery FAQ

How does a potato battery work, can a potato light up a light bulb, why does my potato battery not work, how many amps of energy can a potato battery produce, does using a boiled potato result in more power.

Please copy/paste the following text to properly cite this HowStuffWorks.com article:

• Electronics

How To Make A Light Bulb Work With A Battery

You can learn basic facts about electricity by wiring a simple flashlight bulb to a battery. When you wire the circuit together, current from the battery flows through the wire to the light bulb, lighting it. The circuit is simple, inexpensive and completely safe; you can find the parts at any hardware store.

Strip about 2 inches of insulating material off both ends of the wires if the wires have coated ends. Attach one end of the wire to the negative or smooth end of the battery, using a small piece of electrical tape to keep the metal wire touching the battery.

Attach the other end of the wire to the bulb by wrapping it around the metal at the bottom of the bulb. Wrap it around the area where the screw threads are on a normal bulb. You may need to attach a piece of electrical tape over the wire to hold it securely around the metal bulb base.

Make the light bulb light up with the battery by touching the bottom tip of the bulb to the positive or bumpy end of the battery. The bulb contains two wires extending into the inside of its base that create the circuit that lights the bulb. One stops at the side of the metal base and one extends into the tip, so be sure all contacts with the bulb base touch.

Light the bulb using two wires. Attach one wire to the negative end of the battery and wrap the other end of the same wire around the base of the bulb. Attach the other wire to the positive end of the battery with electrical tape and to the base of the bulb, completing the circuit and lighting the bulb.

Use optional materials to make this activity easier or to create a simple light that stands alone without tape or holding the bulb against the battery. Buy switches to turn the bulb on and off, bulb or battery holders, wires with alligator clips attached and additional bulbs or batteries at teacher and hobby stores.

Things Needed

• C- or D- cell battery or both
• 8- to 10-inch coated/insulated copper wire
• Electrical tape
• Wire strippers
• Flashlight bulb
• Additional wire
• Battery and bulb holders
• Copper wire with alligator clip attached
• Various materials to test as insulators and conductors
• Multiple wires and bulbs

TL;DR (Too Long; Didn't Read)

If using as a child's activity, try testing conductivity and insulating properties of various materials such as paper, foil, plastic and glass by placing them between the wire and battery to see whether the bulb still works. If using this activity to teach children about electricity, drawing the circuit of battery contact (negative), wire, bulb and battery contact (positive) helps them understand how an electrical circuit works.

Match the lightbulb with the output voltage of the battery. Too little voltage, and the bulb won't illuminate. Too much voltage, and the bulb will burn out.

• University of Illinois: How Can I Power a Lightbulb with a Battery?
• University of California, San Diego: Complete Circuits

Cite This Article

Stover, Elizabeth. "How To Make A Light Bulb Work With A Battery" sciencing.com , https://www.sciencing.com/light-bulb-work-battery-4798212/. 17 April 2018.

Stover, Elizabeth. (2018, April 17). How To Make A Light Bulb Work With A Battery. sciencing.com . Retrieved from https://www.sciencing.com/light-bulb-work-battery-4798212/

Stover, Elizabeth. How To Make A Light Bulb Work With A Battery last modified March 24, 2022. https://www.sciencing.com/light-bulb-work-battery-4798212/

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