How is lighting formed? Electrostatic!

In this lesson, students from grades 5th to 7th got a chance to learn how electrostatic works and how its all around us.  First, Mr. Eakins gave an introduction to electrostatics where he explained how lightning is formed and how on dry winter days we feel a shock when we reach out and grab a door knob or tap a friend.  On the hands-on-activity, we figured out what objects were attracted and why others were not and how objects can be charged.  To see this in action we gave students balloons and asked them to rub them on their hair or cloth and then try to stick the balloon on another surface.  Some students (as seen in the picture below) where able to see electrostatics in action when their charged balloon was attracted to paper.  Then we had students rub the balloon on their hair and gave them a plate full of confetti to see if the charged part of the balloon would attract some pieces of confetti.  The last experiment of the lesson was to give students a plate of full of salt and pepper and see which of the two would be attracted to the charged balloon.  In a similar way, scientist use electrostatic techniques to separate other objects or substances.  If you liked the activity, learned anything not mentioned above, or have a question about the lesson, please feel free to comment below!  

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