Activity

Magnets: what sticks to them?

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)
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