Observing Friction & Magnetism!
Posted by Joshua BartosiewiczComing back from president’s weekend, the 8th graders dove head first into Physics which is a new topic of science for our young scholars. We opened our discussion with their personal definitions of “force” and then we compared it to the scientific definition which states, “A force is when a push or pull is exerted on an object causing it to change its relative position or shape”. After we shed some light on the subject, the students participated in a lab dealing with friction (the resistance that one surface or object encounters when moving) and magnetism (a physical phenomenon produced by the movement of an electric charge, resulting in the attraction or repulsive force between objects).
The first part of the lab dealt with friction. Students had a ramp and a set of various objects including; a block of wood, a rubber eraser, a set of wheels, a marble, and a pencil. The students would place one object at a time onto the ramp and slowly begin to lift the ramp. As soon as the object rolled or moved, another student measured the height of the ramp and recorded it in their lab write-up. After every object had been tested, students compared the ramp heights at which the objects moved, this allowed them to compare the frictional forces between each item. They concluded that the higher the ramp was before the object finally moved, the larger the frictional forces must have been in order to keep the object from moving for so long.
The second part of the lab involved Magnetism. Students were given the following items; a bar magnet, a magnetic marble, two paper clips (one with a plastic coating, one without the plastic coating), a copper wire, an iron nail and coins (a penny, nickel, dime and quarter). On their lab write-up, students listed the objects previously mentioned and one by one they would use a bar magnet to see which objects reacted to the attraction or repulsion and which did not. This part of the lab was followed by a class discussion on how magnetism is used in today’s life to complete certain tasks (for example, recycling centers use magnets to help sort out metals from other materials in the recycling process). By the end of this lab, students gained a much clearer understanding of frictional and magnetic forces.
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