Teaching Sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

20 minutes

Tune in: What will change?

20 minutes

Find out: Experiment time!

20 minutes

Reflection: What did we learn?

Tune in: What will change?

Step 1.

Ask students whether they think there's a way to move the soft drink cans without directly touching them?

Students might suggest blowing on the cans, or putting them on a hill to allow gravity to move them.

Step 2.

Explain to students that they are actually going to move the cans using a balloon.

Step 3.

Students write their prediction in the first section of the Student Worksheet.

Find out: Experiment time!

Step 1.

Create a race track by marking the start and finish lines on the table with masking tape.

Step 2.

Place the empty soft drink cans on their side on a table, so that their long end is facing the finish line.

Step 3.

Take the balloon and rub it against your hair in a fast motion.

Step 4.

Bring the balloon close to the can but don’t let it touch the can. The can will begin to roll towards the balloon on its own.

Step 5.

Whoever can get the can to the finish line first, wins!

Reflection: What did we learn?

Electrostatic forces are non-contact forces; they pull or push on objects without touching them.

Rubbing some materials together can result in something called 'charge' being moved from one surface to the other.

By rubbing the balloon through your hair, you create an electric charge that builds up on the surface of the balloon. Tiny parts of the atoms in your hair - the electrons - collect on the balloon. These electrons have a negative charge (-).

Things that have a positive charge are attracted to things with a negative charge because they want to give the negatively charged thing some of their protons (+) to even up their balance.

When you bring the negatively charged balloon near the empty can, the attraction between it and the positively charged can is strong enough to actually pull the can towards the balloon, because it is so light.

Race Cans with Static Electricity

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Summary

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Students will...

Success criteria:

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