What causes lightning and why are some places safer than others when it strikes? This unit is designed to help students build a deeper understanding of atomic structure and atomic-scale force interactions through exploration of phenomena surrounding lightning and other static interactions. Students engage with stories and data about lightning and investigate a similar phenomenon in water droppers. They further investigate static interactions with various materials, including sticky tape, digging down to the subatomic level. Students apply these ideas back to lightning and further investigate force interactions, developing Coulomb’s law and ideas about polarization that can be applied to other phenomena. They identify electric fields as the source of the large energy transfers in lightning and explain lightning’s sudden behavior using ionization. They consider why structures made of certain materials provide protection from lightning and investigate why bodies of water, most of which contain dissolved salts, are particularly dangerous during storms. Finally, students develop a consensus model and transfer their understandings to the phenomena of airplane radomes and conducting gels used to simulate brains.