Everyone knows it’s dangerous to play with electricity. If a strong enough electrical current runs through your body, it can overpower the electrical messages your body sends to your brain, or even stop your heart!  Fortunately, kids science has some easy elementary science experiments you can do that are safe to try at home.

Experiment 1: Dancing dots

1. Tear up a few pieces of paper (tissue paper works best) into little dots and spread them out in a pile.
2. Wet a plastic comb or brush and run it several times through your hair.

3. Bring the comb close to the paper dots. If you brushed your hair enough, the dots should dance!

What’s Happening?

Everything in the world, including your hair, is made up of tiny particles called atoms. An atom is made up of a hard clump of positive (+) protons, surrounded by whizzing negative (-) electrons. There are usually the same number of protons and electrons in an atom, so they cancel each other out.

When you run the comb through your hair, the comb starts grabbing electrons from the atoms in your hair. When there are more electrons than protons on the comb, you create a negative electrical charge.

The paper dots are attracted to the negative charge, and the paper is light enough that you can use the comb to pick them up.

Try touching the comb with a finger of your other hand. What happens?  The dots all fall off!  This is because the extra electrons in the comb move into your finger. If there’s no negative charge on the comb anymore, there’s nothing to hold the dots on, and they will fall.

Experiment 2: Water Wizard

1. Turn on a faucet until you have a very thin stream of water. The thinner the better.
2. Run a plastic comb through your hair several times.

3. Hold the comb near the water. The water should bend toward it!

What’s Happening?

The neutral particles in the water are attracted to the negative charge you built up on the comb.

Experiment 3: Build a Battery

This experiment is a little more complicated, but the things you need should be available at a hardware store. You will need:

• citrus fruit (like oranges or lemons) or a potato
• something copper (like a nail or coin or metal strip)
• a piece of zinc (about the same size as your piece of copper)
• 2 wires with crocodile clamps

• a small LED light or a voltmeter

1. Press down on the fruit and roll it around on a hard surface to break open the juice inside.
2. Get an adult to help you make a small cut into the skin of the fruit and push the copper in.  Leave the end of it sticking out.
3. Make a small cut into the other side of the fruit and push the zinc in.
4. Connect the end of your first wire to the copper, and the end of your second wire to the zinc.

5. Connect the other ends of both wires to the LED or voltmeter. You should see an electric charge!

What’s Happening?

Combining metal with acid (like lemon juice) causes a chemical reaction that creates positive and negative particles around each piece of metal. The negative particles will move through the wires from one piece of metal to the other, which causes an electric current. If the reaction is strong enough, it can even power a light bulb!

Post by Sarah

Hey kids, have you ever watched lightning in the sky at night, or gotten zapped when you touched a metal door? Those are two shocking examples of electricity!

Elementary science teaches us that everything in the world is made up of tiny particles called atoms. An atom is made up of a hard core, called a nucleus, and a cloud of fast whizzing particles called electrons that move around the nucleus. Sometimes electrons can even jump from one place to another. When electrons move, this creates a current of electricity.

When you see lightning up in the sky, you’re actually seeing billions of electrons jumping all at once from one place to another. Moving electrons tend to release a lot of energy, and we can use this electritcity to do all kinds of things, from powering a computer to splitting an atom apart.

Our bodies also use electricity. Every thought that you have is the result of tiny electrical signals jumping between the cells in your brain. Everything that you feel is an electrical message passed down long pathways called nerves that run from your body to your brain. Even your heart is controlled by electrical signals that tell each cell in your heart when to beat.

A heart attack happens when this electrical signal gets mixed up and every cell in your heart tries to beat at a different time. That’s why doctors can use a machine called a defibrilator to deliver a powerful electric shock to your heart – it resets all the heart cells and gets them beating in time again!

Here’s a fun and easy elementary science experiment you can do to see electricity at home:

A Hair-Raising Experiment

1. Blow up a balloon and tie a knot in the end to keep the air from escaping.
2. Rub the balloon quickly back and forth over your head for ten seconds.
3. Slowly pull the balloon away. Watch what happens to your hair.

4. Touch the balloon to a smooth surface, like a wall, and let go. If you rubbed enough, it should stick!

What’s Happening:

Have you ever heard the saying “opposites attract”? Well, that’s true of electric charges, too. Electrons have a negative charge, and the protons that make up the nucleus of an atom have a positive charge. Electrons push away from other electrons, but are strongly attracted to things with a positive charge. There are usually the same number of protons and electrons in an atom, so most of the time, they cancel each other out.

When you rub the balloon over your hair, the balloon grabs electrons from the atoms in your hair. Now there are more electrons than protons in the balloon, and fewer electrons than protons in your hair. This leaves the balloon with a negative charge and your hair with a positive charge. Since opposites attract, the negatively charged balloon sticks to your positively charged hair!

When you touch the balloon to the wall, the electrons in the atoms of the wall are repelled by the balloon and move away from it, but the protons in the wall are attracted to the electrons in the balloon and move slightly toward it. The negative charge in the balloon is attracted to the positive charge in the wall, and zap! It sticks just like a magnet.

Now that is shocking science!

Post by Sarah