Shocking Science

Things got a little crazy in science class last week.
It always helps to have a teacher who is a five year old trapped in a bearded man's body.
The delights of static electricity know no bounds.
Even the normally stoic characters were giggling away.
Nobody could help but smile.


The properties of our world are so magical.

Teressa's hair was so full of static it was starting to stand up.

As the kids played around with the balloons, Mr. Finn was teaching about electricity, but the kids didn't know what was in store for them. They were curious about the silver orb on the pedestal.
The introduction to the strange machine and how it works was amusing. They were especially focused during the discussion of all the electrons being stripped then stored in the orb. They knew what that meant. When Mr. Finn plugged in the Van de Graff machine, they were so freaked out by the noise it made that they started backing up.
Then Mr. Finn wanted a volunteer to touch him. Hahahhaha! Look at their faces!
Finally a volunteer. Fist bump!
The sound of the shock was audible and all the kids gasped. Austin was unconcerned as it doesn't hurt, just sounds impressive. But even knowing that it wasn't painful didn't make any more volunteers step up quickly.

Heeeere's Johnny! He took a little cajoling to stick his hand out and kept quickly withdrawing before Mr. Finn could touch him, but contact was eventually made.
I think his sister took special pleasure in this event.
Myron volunteered next and was very cool, calm and collected as per usual.
Then it was time for them to try their hands at it. And hairs.
Saylor's was particularly responsive.

"I'm not going to touch it!"
Getting all charged up.
Zap!
It took a lot of tries to get a couple pics of the discharging static, but everyone enjoyed watching Mr. Finn get zapped a hundred times.
The group zap did not work as our Van de Graff is too weak, but we could get the charge through a few kids. A fun day learning about electricity and atomic structure, for sure.