Activity: What's the Story with Static Electricity? - UCLA

CA Science Standard:
Grade 4 1E: Students know electrically charged objects attract or repel each other.
Grade 8: 3a. Students know the structure of the atom and know it is composed of protons,
neutrons, and electrons.
3b. Students know that compounds are formed by combining two or more different elements and
that compounds have properties that are different from their constituent elements.
Material List:
Van der Graaff generator (the generator comes with the supplies)
(can you add the catalog number and purchasing detail, I couldn’t find it on line)
Metallic balls
Puffed wheat
Styrofoam cup and balls
Pre-Requisite Knowledge
Students know electrically charged objects attract or repel each other.
Learning Objectives
After this lesson, students should be able to:
Describe the structure of an atom.
Define sub-atomical particles
Understand that things are composed of more than one element with unique properties.
Describe how static electricity forms.
Introduction / Motivation
All matter is made up of atoms. Atoms (Figure 3) are the basic building blocks of all matter.
They have a nucleus that consists of the sub-atomical particles, protons, neutrons and electrons.
To draw in the students describe the atomic make up of a human body. How many atoms are
you made of? Proceed by having the students take a guess at the number of atoms that make up
a human body (average weight of 70kg).
~99% of human body is made up of:
Hydrogen
Oxygen
Carbon
Nitrogen
Calcium
Phosphorus