Experiment 5 — Charge, Sparks and Lightning

Topic: Physics · Class 8 · Some natural phenomena: static electricity and lightning

Aim: Make the leaves of the electroscope spread apart .

Daily: Your comb picks up paper bits on a dry day, a woollen sweater crackles as you pull it off, and the same process on a colossal scale is lightning. Every tall building in India carries a lightning conductor for this reason.

Question: Why do these static-electricity experiments often fail during the monsoon?

Exp: Water vapour lets charge leak away, so nothing accumulates.

Question: Two objects carrying the same kind of charge will…

Exp: Like charges repel — that is why the leaves separate.

Exp: Electrons move from one material to the other.

Question: A lightning conductor works by…

Exp: It carries the current harmlessly to the ground.

Question: During a thunderstorm, the safest place is…

Exp: Never shelter under an isolated tree.