Given balloons and a wool cloth, students will investigate static electricity and the properties of positive and negative electrons. Introduction Set up two centers in the room before the students arrive. The center for static electricity should be equipped with worksheets, balloons, square pieces of wool cloth, and string. When the children arrive in the room, have them sit at their desks and briefly review the lesson from the previous day on current and static electricity. Define each of the terms again to refresh their memory.
Static electricity is a type of electricity produced when objects gain or lose negative charges.
Current electricity is the type of electricity produced when there is a flow of negative charges or electrons. Write these and other descriptions of each type of electricity on the board. Have the students volunteer 3 or 4 examples for each. Explain that students are to work in pairs for this assignment and they must choose someone that they have not worked with in the past week. Before breaking up the group to work on this assignment, model the activities at each center for the entire group.