Looking for a more RIGOROUS static electricity activity? Students will practice SCIENCE GRAPHING SKILLS and answer questions in the CLAIMS-EVIDENCE-REASONING format as they extend their learning about static electricity and electric fields!
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There are THREE graphing activities included. They can be used together, as three stations, or completely independently from each other. The format of each activity is the same:
- Students read a brief background information passage.
- Students make a graph from the provided data.
- Students answer questions in the claims-evidence-reasoning format using evidence from the data table and graph.
Included Graphing Activities:
- Static Electricity and Material Type (bar graph): Graph provided data about how different material combinations being rubbed together create different levels of static electricity. Using the data and graph, students make a claim from evidence to answer the questions: (1) What material combination generates the most static electricity? and (2) Which has a bigger effect on static charge: the material doing the rubbing (like wool, fur, or silk) or the material being rubbed (like the glass rod, rubber rod, or plastic rod)?
- Static Electricity and Humidity (line graph): Graph provided data about how humidity affects static electricity generation. Using the data and graph, students make a claim from evidence to answer the questions: (1) What is the relationship between humidity level and the amount of static charge that can be generated? and (2) How far would the electroscope spread be if the humidity level was 45%?
- Electric Fields vs. Distance (line graph): Graph provided data about how distance from a Van de Graaf generator affects how many paper circles that can be lifted. Using the data and graph, students make a claim from evidence to answer the questions: (1) What is the relationship between distance from the VDG dome and the number of paper circles that can be lifted? and (2) At what distance does the VDG generator’s electric field become too weak to lift paper bits?
Through these activities, students will discover that:
- Static electricity becomes weaker when there’s more humidity in the air, which is why we get more static shocks in winter when the air is dry than in humid summer weather.
- Different material combinations create different amounts of static charge. For example, rubbing wool against plastic creates much more static electricity than rubbing paper against plastic.
- An electric field gets weaker as you move farther away from its source. This is demonstrated by how the Van de Graaff generator can lift fewer pieces of paper as the distance increases.
Static Electricity Activity Teacher Notes:
Related Standards:
- NGSS MS-PS2-3: Ask questions about data to determine the factors that affect the strength of electric and magnetic forces.
- NGSS MS-PS2-5: Conduct an investigation and evaluate the experimental design to provide evidence that fields exist between objects exerting forces on each other even though the objects are not in contact.
