The 14th annual Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival (SCRF 2023) pursued its agenda of training its young visitors with the best of practical skills and abilities, during a workshop on Electrical Experiments held this weekend at the festival venue in Expo Centre. The session aimed to impart pupils, particularly girls between the ages of 6 and 14, with STEM skills and training, in order to cultivate an interest in the sciences and inspire them to pursue higher education in the subject when they are older.

The Electrical Experiments workshop, presented by Sharjah-based training and education company Aufuq Al Ebdaa, introduced the children to the concept of how electrical currents or particles move through wires when an external voltage is applied at one end of a conductor. This, in turn, generates an electrical field on the negatively charged electrons that are attracted to the positive terminal of the external voltage.

After a short powerpoint presentation to display what electric circuit models look like, workshop facilitator Houida Saigh showed the participants how to assemble an electric flashlight using the kit consisting of case, batteries, wires and conductors provided to them. Saigh said, ”This interactive, hands-on session gives them some basic knowledge about how a flashlight, which is a simple series circuit, works. Second, they get to practice fine motor skills. Third, I wanted them to get a basic introduction to batteries, including the fact that batteries have a positive and a negative end. This simple and appealing activity achieves all of these goals and they learn to assemble the item in the correct order.”

Reem, an 11–year-old participant at the workshop from Iqraa International School Sharjah, said: “It was a really interesting workshop where we learnt the basics of how electrical currents work and the conductors used to make a working torch. At the end, we had a device which shone the bulb when the switch was pressed. I’m looking forward to trying out similar experiments at home and in my school science classes.”

Aufuq Al Ebdaa is also holding workshops on how to build model solar fans, volcanoes using household ingredients, and a working toy model of a Tesla car, at the Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival this year.

SCRF is the region’s largest festival of its kind, dedicated to stimulate creativity in young minds and bring them closer to books. The event is running until May 14 in Expo Centre Sharjah with the theme ‘Train your Brain’.