2.1 Electric Charge & Static Electricity, PowerPoint, Notes, PhET Activity

PowerPoint, Guided Notes, and an activity to teach students about Electric Charge and Static Electricity. Activities use PhET simulations Balloons and Static Electricity and John Travoltage. There is also an an activity for students to actually rub a balloon on their hair and investigate what happens. Required materials: computer with internet access and a projector, 2 balloons, empty soda can, string. I did this as a whole class activity where one student went to the board to run the simulation under the direction of their classmates. If you are a 1-1 school, they can do these on their devices individually and then you discuss as a class.

PowerPoint is 15 slides and includes 2 days' activators and objectives. Notes are 4 pages. Activities are built directly into the lesson with hyperlinks in the PowerPoint. Full answer key included!

MA State Frameworks:
5.1 Recognize that an electric charge tends to be static on insulators and can move on and in conductors. Explain that energy can produce a separation of charges.
5.4 Describe conceptually the attractive or repulsive forces between objects relative to their charges and the distance between them (Coulomb’s law).