Wolvercote Primary School, Wolvercote

Pupils making a fruit battery.

Professor of Materials Steve Roberts started his first science workshop with some unusual experiments. The first involved trying to achieve power from a lemon! A pupil inserted two nails into the lemon and when it was connected to a meter reader it appeared that there was no current. Next they tried inserting two coins into the lemon. Again there was no current. Finally they inserted a coin and a nail and found that they had created a battery out of the lemon. Steve explained that it was the use of two different metals that created the current.

He then went on to discuss with the class how energy is measured, comparing how much various energy forms create - such as fossil fuels, solar panels and wind turbines. They also looked into how much energy various appliances use. Following this the pupils experimented with miniature solar panels to light up a LED bulb. They were soon looking at much larger solar panels on their school roof. They are able to monitor the energy that these panels produce from a wall mounted computer in one of their classrooms.

The children were then given homework; to keep a record of their school and home electricity meters, measuring how much electricity they are consuming and how much they are producing from the solar panels. These records will be kept over the course of several weeks, when Steve will return to analyse the data with them.