• 20 to 25 circles hole-punched from colored paper
• 2-foot piece of plastic wrap
• Sheet of paper
What are you learning? How static electricity is created.
The Experiment
1. Place the paper circles on a table.
2. Crumple the plastic wrap into a fist-sized wad and rub the wad quickly back and forth across the sheet of paper 10 to 15 times. Immediately hold the wad above the paper circles, near but not touching.
The Aha! Effect The paper leaps to the plastic! Usually, when any two materials are rubbed together, such as the plastic and paper, electrons (the negatively charged particles that spin outside the nucleus of an atom) are lost from one material (the paper) and gained by the other (the plastic). The buildup of electric charges on an object is called static electricity because the charges aren't moving. They're stationary, that is, static.
Go One Step Further Let your knowledge of static electricity go to your head! Comb your hair or that of a friend, then hold the comb near it (this works best on dry, clean, relatively straight locks). Some of the hair will move toward and cling to the comb. Think hat head but without the hat. Like all static electricity experiments, this works best on cool, dry days.
Adapted from JANICE VANCLEAVE'S TEACHING THE FUN OF SCIENCE (John Wiley & Sons, 2001).
