Bending Water with a Comb

Electricity related science experiments are always a big hit with kids.  This past weekend I showed my daughters how to bend a stream of water with a hair comb.  This is a classic electrostatics problem.  By running a comb through hair (preferably dry), electrons are stripped from the hair and build up on the comb.  When the comb is held next to a small stream of water, the water will bend toward the comb due to an electrostatic force.  Our video of this is below.

You have to watch very carefully, but you should see the stream of water bending slightly.  This is a great experiment that introduces electricity to kids.  Electricity and the electrostatic force are all around us, but this force isn't always as apparent to our eyes as the gravitational force acting on objects.  This is just one of many examples that allows kids to see the electrostatic force in action.  As you can hear in the video, my 2 year old was very excited for it to be her turn to do the experiment!