Static Straw Spinner

Static electricity was first discovered by Ewald Georg von Kleist, a German inventor. Static electricity is created by causing friction between two items. It can create a negative charge or a positive charge. These charges can attract each other if they are opposites and will repel each other if they are the same charges. When these charges come in contact with things like metal, which has a positive charge, you can get shocked.How It works When rubbed with wool the two straws end up with the same charges. When two objects have the same charge such as two positive charges or two negative charges they repel each other. This causes the straw you are holding to push the straw on the cup.How teachers use this in the class room This experiment shows static electricity in its simplest form, and how two of the same charges push against each other.How this could be used in the future Right now static electricity is used for electrostatic generators. Because movement is in a lot of things we do, static electricity could be something we use to power a lot of our items in our daily lives.