Home >> Science & Nature >> Nature

How to Make Lightning With a Pie Pan, Pencil, and Alumiplate

One bolt of lightning can have an electrical charge of up to one billion volts. According to National Geographic, one hundred lightning strikes hit the Earth every second. Lightning is a weather phenomenon caused by colliding negative charges and opposing positive charges most commonly in the clouds. However, sometimes positive charges on the ground, such as those from buildings and trees, attract negative charges in the sky causing lightning strikes on Earth. Create your own homemade lightning experiment with a plate, pencil and an aluminum pie pan.

Things You'll Need

Aluminum pie pan
Thumbtack
Pencil with new eraser
Polystyrene plate
Wool fabric

Instructions

- 1
  Push a thumbtack into the center of an aluminum pie pan from below. Place a pencil with a new eraser over the thumb tack so the eraser is pushed into the tack. The pencil will act like a handle for this experiment.
- 2
  Place the polystyrene plate on a table upside down. Rub a piece of wool fabric on the underside of the plate hard and fast for about one minute.
- 3
  Lift the aluminum pie plate with the pencil handle and put it on top of the upside down plate. Touch the pie pan with your fingers and you should feel an electrical charge. If you do not feel anything, remove the pie plate and rub the polystyrene plate with the wool again. Be sure to rub fast and hard for at least one minute.
- 4
  Turn out the lights and carefully replace the pie pan with the pencil onto the plate again. You should see a flash of lightning.

Nature