Weatherspoon Family: 3rd Grade Science Fair

The Science Fair is quite the deal living here on the Space Coast. Sydney was so excited to do it for the first time in 3rd grade. Of course dad was excited to help her. She thought and thought forever on a question she could do. She had a lot of ideas, but her project came when we were at the park. It was a little bit of a cooler day for Florida and Sydney noticed when she went down the slide that her hair stuck straight out. When she asked "why", we told her about static electricity. We talked about how it depends what you are wearing and what creates it. It was then that she decided to go to the library and get books on static electricity. The question she came up with was "What is the effect of different materials making static electricity when going down a slide?". She wanted to know if it made more static electricity when wearing different clothes. At first I told her it wouldn't be possible to measure which one made the most electricity. However, leave it up to her scientist dad to figure that one part out for her. They got a household volt meter, hooked it to a wire down the slide, then hooked that to her clothes. It actually worked!! As she went down the slide wearing cotton, silk, and polyester - it read different volts of electricity. Her and Mike had lots of fun experimenting. When she wore an old pair of silk pajamas down, she screamed because it hurt so much. We could hear the pops of electricity going down the slide. She learned so much and was able to explain everything great to different judges. She took 2nd place and was so excited!!