Weather

Bending Water: A lesson about static electricity

If you’re looking for something fun and educational to do with your kids at home, consider this balloon experiment to help teach your them about static electricity.

This experiment can allow you to bend water because of the static electricity you create in your own home.

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You can follow along in the video above with Storm Center 7 Meteorologist Kirstie Zontini as she does the experiment from home.

Here’s what you need:

  • A balloon or comb
  • A sink with light running water

Instructions:

  • Blow up the balloon and rub it against your hair. If you have a comb, rub or brush it against your hair. You’re forcing some of the electrons to jump to the balloon or comb, giving it a negative charge.
  • Turn on the sink to get a light flow of water. Quickly after rubbing your hair, hold the balloon towards the water. You will see that the water stream moves towards the balloon!

What’s happening:

The balloon is negatively charged after you rub your head. The water is made of positive and negative charged particles. When you bring the balloon towards the water, the positive charged particles in the water will move the water towards the negatively charged balloon since positive and negative charges are attracted to each other.

How it links to lightning:

Lightning is a fascinating and dangerous part of a storm. Thunderstorms develop an electrical charge when ice, rain droplets and dust all violently run against each other inside a storm cloud. The electrical charge, then between the storm cloud and objects like other clouds or the ground, must build up enough, so when the positive and negative charges come together, lightning forms!

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