AIR SCIENCE – Summer Science Day 8

The students had a literal “blast” today.

We started off making classic balloon rockets and testing paths for them.  This gives students a chance to work together, build paths, test ideas, and figure out what gives it power.

We also did races with aluminum cans powered by static electricity!  They loved trying to see whose hair had  the most and use the power to drag the can across the finish line.   You don’t actually touch the can to the balloon just close enough that it picks up the charge and moves it.  

Next up we did my Static Electricity Stations!  These always have some WOW RESULTS and are so fun for kids to do! We go over the results together and explain how static electricity works.

We tested – salt and pepper, cornstarch, cinnamon, rice Krispies, gelatin

the sound effects are so cool on the Krispies – they literally look like they are being picked up from a UFO

the gelatin looks like little stalagtites!

Finally we tested different styles of paper airplanes from some diagrams I had to see which would fly furthest.  The kids found this fun and was a good way to get outside.  We even got to decorate our flyers!  I didn’t get any pictures of our plans but they loved building and testing some of the new designs I found!

We loved reading and learning about how static electricity works and how this is related to “shocking” someone and lightning. 

Most of the experiments again are from this resource I created below.  Feel FREE to grab this FREE resource and leave me some feedback.