Take Charge! All About Static Electricity
Figure 1. In an illustration of static electricity, a young person's hair stands on end as they touch a Van de Graaf generator.Copyright Biswarup Ganguly
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Van_de_Graaff_Generator_-_Science_City_-_Calcutta_1997_444.JPG
Students come to make sense of the phenomena of static electricity as they use the science and engineering practices of asking questions and making observations to learn about the nature of electric charge and different methods for charging objects. In a hands-on activity, students induce an electrical charge on various objects, and experiment with electrical repulsion and attraction. They discover the disciplinary core ideas of energy and electric and magnetic forces while applying the crosscutting concepts of energy transfer and cause and effect relationships.
Engineers are so creative: Would you ever think that the air we breathe could be cleaned by using the behavior of electrical charges? Engineers who fully understand the scientific principles of static electricity have invented many modern products and industrial processes that help our environment. For example, different types of electrostatic precipitators clean both factory and home air, and electronic paper can be used for communication and re-used over and over again.
After this lesson, students should be able to:
- Understand the basic properties of electric charge.
- Describe technologies associated with static electricity.
- Explain the transfer of electrons between two objects.
- Compare different objects based on their electric charge.