Summary Students use magnets to try and pick up various materials. Can be used as a free experimentation activity. Science content Physics: Motion and Forces, Newton’s Laws, Gravity (K, 2, 6) Science competencies (+ questioning + manipulation + others that are in every activity) Questioning/predicting: predicting (1 up), hypothesizing (7) Planning/conducting: data collection/recording (K up) Processing/analyzing: comparing observations with predictions (1 up) Processing/analyzing: considering alternative explanations (5 up) Evaluating: inferring (3 up) Lessons activity is in Magnet stations Magnet stations and more magnets/electromagnets Forces at-a-distance Materials magnets, one per student materials to test, some metal, some of those containing iron. e.g. iron nail, brass screw, aluminum foil, paper clip, wood, coin, pipe cleaner, eraser, paper, copper item e.g. cookie cutter non-metal trays to spread materials out in Procedure Students record which materials are attracted to a magnet and which are not, and try to find any patterns in their observations. Discussion: Only some metals are attracted to magnets: iron (steel contains iron), nickel and cobalt. With older students, maybe discuss how the electrons inside the atoms are aligned when something is magnetic. Some rocks contain iron e.g. hematite so are attracted by magnets. Sometimes hematite can be magnetized so it becomes a magnet itself (called 'lodestone'.) Notes We found that some pennies were attracted to the magnet and some were not. An interesting extension would be to collect many pennies, and look for a correlation between the year the penny was made and whether they are attracted to a magnet, to predict what metals are in each year. Please note on a small experiment myself that there is no clear, immediate correlation. Grades taught Gr K Gr 1 Gr 2 Gr 3
