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Winter is the time of year for a lot of static so what could be a better time to have a static electricity experiment. Kids always get a kick out of it when they touch something and get a shock. This experiment will be fun and educational.




**Materials

scissors

Styrofoam tray from your supermarket (ask at the meat or bakery counter for a clean, unused tray)

masking tape

aluminum pie tin

**Instructions

1. Cut an "L" shape off of the styrofoam try by cutting around one corner.
2. Tape the "L" shape onto the pie tin to make a handle
3. Rub the remaining styrofoam tray on your head to build up static.
4. Place the styrofoam on the table upside down.
5. Using the handle only, hold the pie tin a foot above the styrofoam tray and drop it on top.
6. Slowly touch just the pie pan with your finger. What a spark!
7. Carefully lift the pie pan up by the handle and touch it again for another great spark.
8. Drop it back down and begin again.

These steps can be repeated over and over again until the static charge runs out. Then just rub the styrofoam on your hair again. How about trying this in the dark? Check out what color the spark is. Kids will love doing this one in the dark so they can see the spark as well as feel it.

**What We Learned

Rubbing the styrofoam on your hair pulls electrons off of your hair and piles them up on the foam. Some of the electrons that are in metal are "free electrons". This means that they can move around freely. They want to get as far away from the styrofoam as possible so they jump to your finger giving you a spark.

When you pull the pie pan up and away from the styrofoam the electrons no longer want to move away. The pie pan is also short a few electrons since it gave them to you. When you touch the pie pan again it pulls the electrons back onto the pie pan giving you another spark.

**Is this how lightning is formed?

Lightning is when electrons move between clouds and the ground or cloud to cloud. The moving electrons heat up the air so hot that it is 5 times hotter than the sun. The heating up and expanding of the air creates a supersonic wave that is heard as thunder.