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Physics - Static Electricity for High School and AP Physics
Rating: 4.4 out of 5(20 ratings)
223 students

Physics - Static Electricity for High School and AP Physics

Master electrostatics with electric charge, electric force, electric field, voltage, and electric potential
Created byCorey Mousseau
Last updated 6/2026
English
English [Auto],

What you'll learn

  • Students will have a strong foundation and thorough understanding of the fundamental principles behind electrostatics (static electricity).

Course content

4 sections • 23 lectures • 2h 37m total length

  • Electrostatics Workbook0:10
  • Physics Course Online Course Map
  • Introduction to Static Electricity (Electrostatics)8:12

    Explore static electricity, or electrostatics, and how charges interact as a non-contact force. Like charges repel, unlike charges attract, within electric fields, and elementary charge basics are introduced.

  • 2 - The Electric Charge6:35

    Explore how electric charge arises from electron transfer during rubbing between neutral objects, making them gain or lose electrons and become negative or positive while conserving charge.

  • 3 - Conductors and Insulators8:57

    Explore how conductors and insulators differ in allowing charge to move, with free roaming electrons in metals and salty water versus bound electrons in glass and plastics.

  • 4 - Charging by Contact4:48

    Learn charging by contact (conduction), where touching transfers electrons between objects, as a positively charged glass rod and an electroscope illustrate net charge and electron transfer.

  • 5 - Polarization8:20

    Explore polarization, where a neutral object near a charged body develops opposing charge regions through rearrangement of electrons in insulators and conductors, leaving no net charge but enabling attraction.

  • 6 - Charging by Induction9:28

    Charge by induction shows a polarized object with electron movement and charge separation without direct transfer. Grounding and removing the ground create or remove net charge, illustrating induction and neutralization.

  • 7 - The Electroscope Part 17:26

    Explore how the electroscope uses a conductor and gold leaves to compare charge strength without precise measurements. When a charged object nears, polarization causes leaves to repel, revealing charge differences.

  • 8 - The Electroscope Part 27:47

    Observe how an electroscope's leaves reveal charge through polarization, then compare charging by contact and induction, including grounding to produce a net positive or negative charge.

  • 9 - Coloumb's Law10:41

    Apply coulomb's law to compute the electrostatic force between two charges, F = k q1 q2 / r^2, with magnitude from charges and distance, and direction from their signs.

  • 10 - Coloumb's Law Examples12:18

    Master coulomb's law with two-charge examples, showing force scales with the charge product and inverse square of distance. Apply k q1 q2 / r^2 and prefixes to analyze changes.

Requirements

  • Students should be strong in algebra and have a basic foundation in geometry.

Description

This course is one of several Mousseau Physics courses designed for students in high school physics, AP Physics, and introductory college physics. In this course we focus on electrostatics, the study of electric charge and electric interactions when charges are not moving through circuits. Students will study charge, conductors and insulators, Coulomb's law, electric force, electric field, electric potential energy, voltage, and electric potential.


The videos and resources include clear lectures, diagrams, demonstrations, and worked out example problems. Students will learn how to organize electric force and electric field problems, how to interpret field direction, how to distinguish force, field, energy, and potential, and how to use units to keep the ideas straight. The course is designed to make abstract electric ideas more concrete through repeated visual models and problem solving practice.


This course is a strong fit for high school physics students, AP Physics students, and introductory algebra based college physics students. It does not require calculus. Students who find electricity confusing often benefit from slowing down and separating the vocabulary carefully before trying to solve multi-step problems.


By the end of the course, students should be more comfortable with the core ideas of electrostatics and better prepared for related topics such as capacitance, circuits, magnetism, and electromagnetism. Students should also be able to explain the difference between electric field and electric potential, one of the most important conceptual hurdles in this unit.


Students can work straight through the course as a full unit or use individual lessons as targeted support alongside a class. The videos are built to be paused, rewound, and practiced with pencil and paper, so the course works well for homework help, test review, exam preparation, or rebuilding a topic that did not fully click the first time.

Who this course is for:

  • This course is designed for Introductory level college physics students as well as any high school physics student.

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