Every week, Madison (my 10-year old daughter) and I teach a 1.5-hour afterschool science club for K-2nd graders. Each week she helps plan the lesson and then write the blog about what we did.
We have provided links to the books we used to sneak in some literacy. We learned most of the science experiments and activities from Steve Spangler (awesome speaker and science guy extraordinaire). We have included links to his science supplies, experiments, and videos. We have also included links to our YouTube videos. These links take you away from the blog and to external websites.
Lesson 18 & 19
Science of Magnetism
Science Standards Addressed: Students can describe the properties of magnets.
Plus we snuck in some speaking and listening standards like asking questions, expressing ideas, following multi-step directions, and participating in discussions.
5 minutes
As the children arrived we played the songs Stuck on You, by Elvis Presley; and Magnet and Steel, by Walter Egan.
Cow Magnets
We explained that when cows are grazing, they eat EVERYTHING! They eat hay, grass, dirt, staples, little bits of bailing wire, even nails – they call it “tramp iron.” Then we showed them a super strong cow magnet. Link to COW MAGNETS.We explained that ranchers put these magnets down a cow’s throat, so that any iron that the cows eat gets stuck to the magnet. If this iron goes through their digestive tract it can get lodged and cause irritation and Hardware Disease, which causes cows to loose their appetite, and not gain weight (meat). Hardware Disease also reduces milk production in dairy cows. One magnet stays in the cow for it’s whole life. Before eating snack we showed them an iron nail. We asked if THEY would ever eat such a thing? NO WAY JOSE!
Then… we gave them some iron to eat!
We snacked on some iron-enriched cereal with prunes and bananas, which both contain iron.
