What is static & writing a procedure

This week we will be focusing on procedural writing.

To get started and see what they students could already do we did a simple experiment together.

Balloon static experiment

Materials

• 2 inflated (inflated)
• Your hair
• Aluminum can
• Woolen fabric

Procedure Blow up two balloons Rub the 2 balloons one by one against the woolen fabric. Try moving the balloons together, Q do they want to or are they un-attracted to each other? Rub 1 of the balloons back and forth on your hair then slowly it pull it away, Q What happens? Put the aluminum can on its side on a table. Rubbing a balloon on your hair again Hold the balloon close to the can. Q Does it rolls towards the balloon or away from it? The students did the experiment and then tried to write up what they did step by step. They then discussed the features of a good procedure and created a class checklist to use. We also discussed what was happening in the experiment. Rubbing the balloons against the woolen fabric or your hair creates static electricity. This involves negatively charged particles (electrons) jumping to positively charged objects. When you rub the balloons against your hair or the fabric they become negatively charged. They say opposites attract and that is certainly the case in these experiments. Your positively charged hair is attracted to the negatively charged balloon and starts to rise up to meet it. This is similar to the aluminum can which is drawn to the negatively charged balloon as the area near it becomes positively charged, once again opposites attract. In the first experiment both the balloons were negatively charged after rubbing them against the woolen fabric, because of this they were un-attracted to each other.