Static Electricity Investigation

Focus Question: What happens when we rub a plastic spoon on cloth and hold it closely to the salt and pepper?

Prediction/Hypothesis: If we use static electricity, then we can separate the salt and pepper.

Planning: Salt, pepper, plastic spoons, Tupperware bowls, Ziploc bags, carpet

Data:

Materials	What Happened
Salt (1 tbsp.) Pepper (1 tbsp.) Bowl Plastic spoon Carpet	After mixing the salt and pepper together, as well as rubbing the spoon on the carpet for about 20 seconds and holding it to the S&P mixture, the pepper began to stick to the spoon. Some salt stuck as well but not very much, depending on how close you held the spoon.

Claims & Evidence: If we have salt and pepper mixed together, then we can use a plastic spoon rubbed against cloth to separate the two variables.

Conclusion: What happened when you rubbed the spoon on the carpet and held it over the salt and pepper mixture? What caused the S&P to stick to the spoon? We learned that static electricity is made up of positive and negatively charged particles. The particles attract to each other and we observed this while watching the salt and pepper stick to the spoon.

Questions: Is there any other items we could use to demonstrate static electricity? What else could we rub the spoon on the get the same reaction with the salt and pepper?