Wow your friends and family this Halloween by creating your very own dancing ghosts… using science!

What you need for this spooky experiment:

• Tissue paper
  You can even use a piece of toilet paper.

• A balloon

• A marker

• Tape

• Scissors

• A head of hair

What to do:

1. Use the scissors to carefully cut a ghost shape out of your tissue paper.
   Try different shaped ghosts to find out which ones look the spookiest.

2. Use the marker to draw faces on your tissue ghosts.
   Will yours be creepy or welcoming?

3. Attach half a piece of sticky tape to the very bottom of your tissue ghost and the other half to a flat surface.
   This is what will stop your ghosts from flying away completely, instead of just dancing for you.

4. Blow up the balloon and tie it closed.

5. Next, rub the balloon really fast on the top of your head of hair for about 15 seconds.
   This will add a static charge to the balloon. You’ll know when it’s working because your hair will start lifting up towards your balloon.

6. Slowly bring the balloon near your tissue ghosts and watch them rise towards the balloon.
   If you make some ghosts that you don’t stick to a surface, you may even find that they will float up and stick to the balloon.

The Science behind the magic…

When you rub the balloon on your hair, invisible electrons (with a negative charge) build up on the surface of the balloon.

These electrons have the power to pull very light objects (with a positive charge) toward them.

Other experiments…

1. Test to see if the shape of your ghosts changes how well the experiment works.

2. Try using heavier paper (or multi-layered tissue) - does the experiment still work?

Did you give it a go?

Send us a photo of your dancing ghosts (and any experiment observations) and you might find your spooky science experiment featured in a future issue of Upstart magazine!