Last week we continued to look at magnets and Mrs Robinson set us a new challenge. We had to try and make our own magnets! We discussed that magnets are made from materials that contained nickel, iron or cobalt. We talked about the poles of a magnet and what causes a magnet to have poles. To make our magnets we needed a paper clip and a magnet.
What we are going to do:
We are going to straighten a paper clip. We are then going to rub the paperclip down the magnet.
We must make sure we rub the magnet in one direction quickly. We have to do this to align the
particles in the paperclip to polarise them. We illustrated our work with a diagram to show the experiment.
What we think will happen:
We all thought that the paper clip would become magnetic and would attract other paperclips.
We found it challenging to make our paper clips magnetic. However some of us managed
to make our magnets and found that our magnetic paper clip could attached not 2 but 3 paperclips!