I just got some Styrofoam pellets from Educational Innovations and videotaped some static electricity phenomena. According to the enclosed sheet static electricity is:
Objects become charged when rubbed against each other. This happens because negatively charged electrons flow from one object to the other. The direction they flow depends on the materials themselves. The result is one object becomes negatively charged (it has an excess of electrons) and the other becomes positively charged (it has a deficit of electrons).
In the video a balloon is rubbed on my head making part of the balloon charged. When the balloon is placed close to the Styrofoam pellets, some of the oppositely charged pellets go to the oppositely charged parts of the balloon. You can also see that some of the pellets are spaced apart, indicating that these pellets have like charges and are repelling each other.
In the second part of the video, I rubbed color straws on the surface of the counter top. Notice how the straws are repelling and attracting to each other because different parts of the straws have different charges.
Very cool!