Apologia Physical Science: Electricity and Magnetism

The Physical Science class is completing Module 12.  The Apologia textbook doesn't have a ton of material on magnetism.  We started class with a brief discussion on domains, magnetic induction, and electromagnets.  For this lesson on magnetism, I bought a variety of magnets: a cow magnet, paddle magnets, bar magnets, horseshoe magnets, discs, etc.   I think kids learn more about electricity and magnetism by doing a series of experiments.  For whatever reason, this time, I had a terrible time getting an Electromagnet to work.  Usually a nail, copper wire, and a battery work well.  Not this time!  Lydia tried different nails, different wire, nothing.  Last week, same story.  I ordered a kit on Amazon.  Initially it did not work either.  We checked all the connections, batteries, etc.  Finally, I noticed there was no metal rod it the copper coil.  Success!  We talked about how electromagnets are used to move scrap.  Everyone had a turn assembling and testing the electromagnet kit.  Generally, we had more success than failure; but kids learn from failure, too.

 I used another Physical Science textbook, which did have a series of magnetic experiments to try, such as What is the source of magnetism?  The kids used a kit to build an electroscope.  The wire and nail didn't work-so I ordered a kit.  I wanted the kids to see a solenoid.  They tried to build a speaker, too, which did not operate, either.  I scoured the house for an am/fm radio, which one of the boys took home to see if he can fix it to test the speaker.   Now, the electroscope (12.2) worked extremely well.  How do magnets behave? is one of the activities using disk magnets and it worked, too.  This classzone link has two more experiments to try.  Below are photos from today's class.



Photos:
http://m.imgur.com/Mdl4uiI,kbOqZJ2,wVWhiug,c0SwBNf,m7y9gHp,aZmVRFN,ZeX0mO0,IPPyJlJ