At a glance
Static Electricity is a 60 or 75 minute workshop for grade 2 and grades 6 to 9, built around a 250,000-volt Van de Graaff generator. Students learn about atoms, electrons and protons, positive and negative charges, and how lightning forms.
Your hair stands on end, sparks fly when you get dressed, you felt a zap shaking a friend’s hand? No doubt about it: you are a victim of static electricity!
Our young scientists figure out this phenomenon with our incredible Van de Graaff generator (250,000 volts).
Hair-raising experiments, guaranteed!
Learning goals (elementary)
- Describe what static electricity is.
- Understand atoms, electrons, protons, and positive and negative charges.
- Understand how lightning forms.
- Tell magnets apart from electrostatics.
- Know the difference between conductors and insulators.
- Understand how static electricity shows up in daily life (car, carpet, balloon).
- Understand why shocks are more common in winter.
Learning goals (secondary)
- Describe static electricity as a transfer of electrons from one body to another.
- Know the ways an object can be charged.
- Match elementary particles with their electric charge (protons, neutrons, electrons).
- Describe how opposite and like charges behave near each other.
