Low-cost electrostatic experiments

Modern materials, components etc. enable us to create new variants of electrostatic experiments and demonstrations. Such experiments – simple, cheap, transparent and often also surprising – proved to be quite interesting for both teachers and students. The paper presents a series of simple electrostatic experiments and instruments that can be built by teachers or students themselves and can be used in various ways: for demonstration of basic phenomena, active engagement of students, teaching and discussing basic concepts of electricity, inquiry-based teaching and learning etc. Some methodological issues of using of these experiments are also discussed. The experiments were successfully piloted and used both in pre- and in-service training of physics teachers in The Czech Republic