Is It Magnetic?
Objectives: Students use their sense of sight to guess if various metallic items are magnetic. Students use written lists to organize information.
Materials:
Prepare several YES/NO cards. This is simply a card with "Yes" on one side and "No" on the other.
A good magnet.
A variety of metallic items including aluminum and other non-magnetic metals. Try to bring enough items for all your students to have a turn.
Procedure:
Show the students several of the metallic items. Are they all magnetic? Students in turns pick out an item and show their YES/NO card to predict an answer to the question,"Is it magnetic?" The student tries to raise the item with the magnet or raise the magnet by the item depending on the sizes. Allow students to guess about any of the items in the classroom.
Have students keep a two column list of what is and is not magnetic. What do the items in each list have in common? What can we say about rusty items? Ask students to read back what they have written on the lists to check what they wrote.
There are only three metals that are magnetic. Iron and Cobalt are the only common ones. Steel contains iron and is magnetic.