Forces and Magnets Week 3
SAFETY WARNING
This week we are going to start thinking about magnets. Magnets can be extremely dangerous if swallowed, especially small magnets. So please do not use magnets where you have younger brothers and sisters around. They can also damage or interfere with technical equipment so don't use near phones and computers just in case.
You may also be struggling for resources this week - I think I mainly have fridge magnets and magnets for a small whiteboard in my house. Hopefully the clips will help you.
Week 3 task
Again this week there are lots of opportunity for your own practical work. What we want to find out is which materials are magnetic and which are non-magnetic. This will help you review the names of different materials around the house - e.g. wood, plastic, glass, wool, cotton, metal etc and identifying what familiar objects are made up of.
You are trying to find out if a material is magnetic or non magnetic. For example if you use your fridge magnet, you know that the metal of the fridge is magnetic because the magnet sticks to it and does not fall off. We say the the magnet is attracted to the metal. There is an invisible magnetic force which pulls the metal to the magnet. If you then try to place the magnet on the wooden leg of a table it will just fall off as it is non-magnetic.
Before you test each material remember to make a prediction (your best guess) as to whether you think the material will be magnetic or non-magnetic. When you have got your results can you make a table to show which materials are magnetic and which are non-magnetic?
To investigate further you may want to look at different types of metals and see if all metals are magnetic.