Have you found the books Clark gave to elementary school libraries? This year’s book is Drop: An Adventure through the Water Cycle

Activity

Bending Water with Static Electricity

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Instructions

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Consider this:

When you run the comb through your hair, invisible electrons (with a negative charge) build up on the surface of the comb. This is called static electricity, which means “non-moving electricity.” The electrons have the power to pull very light objects with a positive charge toward them. Let’s do an experiment!

  • Dry plastic comb
  • Indoor faucet
  • Clean dry hair on your head
  • Turn on the faucet and slowly turn down the water until you have a very thin stream of water flowing.
  • Take a plastic comb and brush it through your hair ten times.
  • Slowly bring the comb close to the flowing water but do not touch the water!
  • As you move closer, the water should bend toward the comb.
  • Does the size of the comb affect the static ability to bend water?
  • Does the material that the comb is made of affect the static power?
  • Does the number of times you comb your hair change the angle of the bent water?

Clark image

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