Conductors and Insulators Facts for Kids: What happens when you turn on and off the lights at your home? You are actually swapping between conductors and insulators.
Conductors are the materials that provide the easiest path to the electric current. Currents can easily travel through conductors without any difficulty. Materials that allow electric currents to pass through them are called conductors. Conductors can also carry heat. The materials that are good electrical conductors are also heat conductors. They are also known as thermal conductors.
The best conductors of heat are metals. The most conductive of all the elements is silver but the most commonly used electrical conductor is copper. Copper is used more than silver as it is cheaper and easier to source than silver. For this reason, copper is used in electrical wiring in most electronics you use. Some metals are known as superconductors. These materials are perfect conductors and have zero electrical resistance. Metals are also very heat conductive. This is why we use wooden spoons when cooking and not metal spoons.
The opposite of a conductor is an insulator. An insulator stops the flow of electricity. Insulators play a vital role in keeping us safe from electrical currents. Insulators are the materials such as rubber and glass which block an electric current or heat from passing through them. Materials that have poor insulation are water and damp wood. Without insulators we would be electrocuted by our electrical appliances easily.
Some materials are between a conductor and an insulator. These materials are called semiconductors. Semiconductors can control currents in just one direction. The most commonly used semiconductor in electronics today is silicon. This material is used in most electronic devices such as mobile phones, tablets and computers.
Look around your house and you will see many different types of conductors and insulators all over your home and in your school. The handles of saucepans and kettles are made out of insulator materials such as wood and plastic to stop heat from hurting our hands when using them.
All electrical appliances, such as chargers have rubber protecting the conductive electrical wires to prevent us being electrocuted. Even your clothes are insulators, when it is cold we put on layers of warm clothes to insulate our bodies and keep the heat in.
We hope you enjoyed learning more things about conductors and insulators as much as we loved teaching you about them. Now that you know how majestic the universe is, you can move on to learn about other STEM articles like: Metals and Magnets.
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