Lemon Battery

P2/3 have been learning about electricity. Last week we looked at batteries, and thought about different toys and objects that use batteries.

Today we learned that you can use a lemon to generate a small amount of electricity.

First, we had to shake the lemons to loosen up the lemon juice inside 

Then, Miss Ross and Lynn put a nail into one side of the lemon and a copper wire into the other side. 

We then joined a wire to each of the copper wire and nail. 

Next, we joined the other ends of the wires to the bulb. 

We hoped the bulb would light up......but it didn't. 

Next, we tried joining 4 lemons together to see if they would make the bulb light up. 

But, it still didn't work!

Then, we decided that we would join all 8 lemons together to see if that would work...... 

But it still wouldn't light up! 

Even though it would not make the bulb light up, we found out that we had generated a small amount of electricity. Jim, the janitor gave us a machine which allowed us to test the power of the electricity. We tested 2 batteries and it read 2.7 V. 

We tested our lemon battery and it said we were generating 3.3 V. 

P2/3 had a long discussion about why the lemon battery would not light up the bulb and we came up with a lot of suggestions including: 

* the lemon has lost all of its juice 

* the colour of the cables might affect it 

* the cables might not be working properly 

* the bulb might be broken 

* it is too far for the electricity to go