Like what about plastic makes it impossible for electricity to flow through it as opposed to something like metal?
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I always think of those old ball-bearing puzzles I played with as a kid, the kind where you had to tip the puzzle back and forth and get the little balls to roll into their holes. And if you bumped the puzzle even slightly (added energy) the the balls would go flying around because the holes weren’t very deep.
So those little balls are like the electrons in their shell around the atom. A material like copper doesn’t have very deep “holes” for the electrons to sit in, so giving copper a little bit of energy–a small bump–can send the electrons flying off. However a material like plastic has very deep holes. You can get the electrons to move in plastic, but you have to give it quite a jolt of energy.
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