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Isolation station at home

See how electricity gets from the grid to our goods, as we isolate, locate, solve the puzzles and investigate.

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You’ll need

  • Scissors
  • Tables
  • Coloured pens or pencils
  • Pens or pencils
  • A4 paper
  • Devices or computers with access to the internet
Safety signs and equipment, and example consumer units
PDF – 1.2MB
Download Safety signs and equipment, and example consumer units

For electricity to flow, everything needs to be connected in a big ring. It’s called a circuit. A circuit consists of:

  • a power source – such as a battery or a generator
  • wires – which allow electric current to flow through them
  • components – devices such as switches, bulbs, or motors

For example, the lights in most houses and flats are part of a circuit controlled by the consumer unit. The consumer unit contains the main switch and the fuses for all of the fixed circuits, such as the power ring circuit and the lighting circuit.

The wiring in a house connects all appliances together in parallel circuits. This is so that each appliance has the mains supply of 230 volts across it. They can also all be switched on and off independently.

The power sockets in a house are connected by means of a ring circuit. In a ring circuit the live, neutral and earth wires form a loop of cable going from the consumer unit to all of the sockets in turn and then back to the consumer unit.

The fuse breaks the circuit if a fault in an appliance causes too much current to flow. This protects the wiring and the appliance if something goes wrong. The fuse contains a piece of wire that melts easily. If the current going through the fuse is too great, the wire heats up until it melts and breaks the circuit.

Source: BBC Bitesize


Before you begin 

  • Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. There's also more guidance to help you carry out your risk assessment, including examples.   
  • Make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
  • Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help. 
  • This is a great activity to run during an online session. Check out the advice on using Zoom and other popular digital platforms and the guidance on being safe online.

About this activity

This activity allows everyone to understand the importance of isolating circuits within a consumer unit (home fuse board) before carrying out some work. Alongside this they’ll discover different safety equipment and hazard symbols to keep them safe.

During this, everyone will have the opportunity to ‘isolate’ an area in your home by “switching off” the circuit, this allows the chance to enter a location safely and search for a hazard symbol or piece safety equipment and bring it out to explain to everyone later.

Planning and setting up this activity

  • Choose two locations in your home to “isolate”.
  • Print out or draw two hazard symbols and cut them each into 10-piece jigsaw puzzles. Example pictures can be found on the 'Safety signs and equipment, and example consumer units' sheet.
  • Print out one copy of the consumer unit and two copies of the individual consumer unit circuits. Both can be found on the 'Safety signs and equipment, and example consumer units' sheet. You could also draw these if needed.
  • Write the locations you are “isolating” on the consumer unit circuit pictures, one per sheet.
  • Hide the jigsaw pieces around the two locations being “isolated”.
  • Place the consumer unit picture on the floor or on a table and put the two circuit pictures next to it.

Running this activity

  1. Explain to everyone that they will be learning about consumer units and circuits and why isolating them can make somewhere safe to work.
  2. Show everyone the pictures of the consumer unit and circuits and talk about what they are and how they work. You could also ask a responsible adult to show everyone where the unit is in their home, reminding them to not touch it.
  3. Let everyone know that they will now take part in a game to learn how to work in a space safely by isolating it using the pictures of the consumer unit and circuits.
  4. Explain that everyone should have two locations written on the pictures of the consumer unit circuits, in these locations there are jigsaw puzzle pieces that need to be found.
  5. To “isolate” that area so it is safe to enter and to look for the puzzle pieces, everyone must stand on or touch the consumer unit picture and remove the circuit picture for that area and take with them. This will then it safe.
  6. When they have completed this, they can go into that area to look for the puzzle pieces.
  7. After leaving the area, they must put the picture of the circuit back next to the consumer unit and stand or press it again to turn it back on.
  8. This can be repeated for the second area where the puzzle pieces are. Remind everyone that they can’t enter either space if it hasn’t been correctly isolated.
  9. Once all the puzzle pieces have been found, they can complete the jigsaw puzzles.
  10. Finally, give everyone 10 minutes to do some internet research about the symbols and equipment in their jigsaws, ready to present back to the rest of the group.

Reflection

This activity showed how electricity is distributed to parts of a building that need it. Everyone should also have an idea of what it’s like for electricians who install, test and repair electrical goods. Why are all those symbols and PPE (personal protective equipment) so important, and what other common examples can you name? What do you think the hazards are of working around electrical installations, for you and others?

Safety

All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.

You must run your activities in line with the Safeguarding Code of Conduct for Adults (Yellow Card) and report any concerns to the UK HQ Safeguarding Team.

Scissors

Supervise young people appropriately when they’re using scissors. Store all sharp objects securely, out of the reach of young people.

Dark

Provide some light, so the environment isn’t completely dark. Everyone must be able to see others and move around the area safely.

Online safety

Supervise young people when they’re online and give them advice about staying safe. Take a look at our online safety or bullying guidance. The NSPCC offers more advice and guidance, too. If you want to know more about specific social networks and games, Childnet has information and safety tips for apps. You can also report anything that’s worried you online to the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command. As always, if you’ve got concerns about a young person’s welfare, including their online experiences, follow the Yellow Card to make a report.

Phones and cameras

Make sure parents and carers are aware and have given consent for photography.

You could turn off the lights and make it semi-dark in each location, as might happen if the circuit to the room was isolated. This should make it more challenging to find the jigsaw pieces, but the locations will need to be risk assessed with this in mind.

Jigsaw pieces with different textures placed in accessible hiding places should make this activity more inclusive.

All Scout activities should be inclusive and accessible.

Scouts DIY Activity Badge

Once everyone knows and understands the risks, necessary equipment and all the symbols, they can use this knowledge for a major DIY project as part of this badge.

If you enjoyed this activity, why not try Patch it up.

Young people could find symbols and equipment themselves with devices. These could be printed and hidden for other teams to find. Check that these are relevant to this activity.