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Amazing Home School Science Curriculum – Static Electricity and Light Experiments

Can you imagine life without electricity? Static electricity is electricity that is static or stationary, and we experience it on a daily basis. Have you ever experienced a shock as you touched your door knob?

No, your door knob did not have an electric wire connected to it. The electric charge is on your body. What you did not remember is that before touching the door knob you had rubbed your feet on your carpet as you walked over it. As your shoes rubbed over the carpet a static electricity developed over it. Electrons got collected over your shoes and your skin, and these electrons jumped onto the metal knob at the first opportunity. ZAP!

We also know that unlike charges attract. Here are a few simple fun activities which I always include in the homeschool science curriculum that I teach.

Try these out!

Rub your shoes over your carpet and touch your friend’s fingertip with your fingertip. Zappo!

Do the same and hold a neon bulb at one end. Watch it glow!

Rub a plastic comb over a woolen sweater and hold it near some pieces of paper or a ping pong ball. The pieces of paper stick to the comb or the ping pong ball rolls towards the comb.

Rub a latex balloon over your hair and raise the balloon. A hair raising experience

Do the same and take the balloon near a wall. It sticks.

Hold this balloon containing a charge near a stream of water flowing from a faucet.

Rub a lit-up fluorescent bulb with a few materials such as wool, silk, saran wrap, etc.

Now let’s get on to our next topic: Light. We see an apple when light reflecting off the apple falls on our eyes. We cannot see the apple in the dark because there is no light to reflect off the apple. To understand how our eyes work, here’s an experiment that has amazed me as a child and therefore I include it in every home school science curriculum I design.

Pinhole Camera: Take a cardboard box (A shoe box will do) with no holes or cracks in it. Preferably paint it black on the insides to reduce the unnecessary reflection of light. Make a small pinhole on one vertical side towards one end of the box and cut open the opposite side. Tape a piece of tracing paper or wax paper over the open side. Your pinhole camera is now ready.

Aim your camera at some well lit-up object and notice the image that appears on the tracing paper. Adjust the distance of the camera from the object or hold a magnifying glass before the pinhole to get a sharper image. You will notice that the image is upside down. Your eye works in a similar way.

The rays of light enter your eye through a small hole called the iris. The rays are projected on a screen at the back of the eyeball called the retina. Similar to your pinhole camera, >the image is upside down, but your brain turns the image right side up so that you can see it.

To get great science experiments and activities visit the free “Home school Parent’s Guide to Teaching Science” at the link below.

A great free resource for really cool science activities and experiments is to download a copy of the Homeschool Science Experiment Guide.

Another good homeschool resource for science ideas, experiments and activities, is the homeschool science blog (just click on the “Blog” link). Definitely worth bookmarking.

Good luck!

About the Author Aurora Lipper has been teaching science to kids for over 10 years. She is also a mechanical engineer, university instructor, pilot, astronomer, a real live rocket scientist (You should see the lab in her basement!) and a mom. She has inspired thousands of kids with the fun and magic of science.

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