Classroom Outreach
Want to get your students excited about science? Have a Mag Lab expert visit your classroom!
We offer a series of specially designed, hands-on lessons that experienced Mag Lab educators will bring to your school at no cost. During the 2005-2006 academic year, we reached more than 6,000 students. Covering topics from magnetism to electricity to molecules, these lessons feature inquiry-based activities that challenge students to ask and answer questions about the world around them. These classes are tailored to specific levels from kindergarten through grade 12 and last 45 minutes to an hour. Visits can be scheduled on Tuesdays, Wednesdays or Thursdays. Choose from one of the lessons below, or call us to customize a program to meet your specific needs.
What is a Scientist?
Recommended grades: K-3
This outreach introduces students to the subject of science, explains how scientists and engineers work day in and day out, and gets them thinking about the way they view science. Students learn that whenever they wonder about how something works or why something happens, they are acting like young scientists! Students use loops during a discovery activity that turns them into scientists for a while. This outreach is usually paired with the “Primary Magnet Exploration” outreach described below; together they last about an hour.
Primary Magnet Exploration
Recommended grades: K-3
We introduce students to the idea of observation and looking at things in scientific ways. We start by reading them a related story, then engage the class with a hands-on exploration of the world around them that introduces the use of scientific tools – in this case, magnets! After a short introduction on magnets and magnetism, students use their observational skills to explore magnets of different shapes and sizes, and make some amazing discoveries. This outreach is usually paired with the “What is a Scientist?” outreach described above; together they last about an hour.
Rainbows and Light
Recommended grades: K-4
This is a chance to study the basic principles of the visible spectrum. Students will discuss white light, refraction and the spectrum of light. They will use prisms to break up white light and see the spectrum it creates.
Basic Electromagnets
Recommended grades: 4-6
Students drive a discussion on principles and properties of magnets, magnetism, the connection between magnetism and electricity and Hans Christian Oersted’s discovery of electromagnetism. Students then construct their own electromagnets and test their magnets’ strength. We talk about different types of magnets, how they are used in the home and how magnetic fields can be measured.
Static Electricity and Circuits
Recommended grades: 4-8
Most students’ experience with electricity is limited to static cling and dragging their feet on the carpet to create a spark with the door knob. This activity demonstrates how items can acquire charges from other objects, and how these charges can make objects attract, repel and even create sparks of electricity. Students will create series circuits and parallel circuits and work in teams to create switches and complex circuits using light bulbs as test units. Then they will create small static charges and see a Van de Graaf generator create electric sparks that can be used to transfer charges.
A Mag Lab educator demonstrates how a resistive magnet works during a classroom visit.
Advanced Magnetic Exploration
Recommended grades: 4-12
Building on the basic principle that magnets attract and repel, students begin to learn about the magnetic domains of electrons and how electrons work to give things a magnetic field. This leads to the discovery of the magnetic properties of objects that are ferromagnetic and diamagnetic.
Lenz's Law
Recommended grades: 4-12
Science often presents some interesting principles, and this outreach is the investigation of one of them. It builds on the principles covered in Basic Electromagnets, challenging students to create a small motor. Magnetism and electricity work together to power the motor by turning a small coil.
Spectrum Analysis
Recommended grades: 5-12
During our visit we will discuss the colors of light, primary colors, spectra and the analysis of light. We will bring tubes of different gasses to class, each with a distinct spectral pattern. After we make the gases visible using a gas exciter, students will use spectrum (diffraction grating) glasses to observe the different spectra. Using a spectral analysis chart, they will be asked to identify which gases are in which tubes.
Molecule Madness
Recommended grades: 5-12
This activity introduces students to the building blocks of matter. Using special magnetic models as stand-ins for the real things, students will weigh their “newly discovered atoms” using a triple beam balance. They then assign symbols and names to "their" atoms and combine them to create molecules.
QX5 Microscopes
Recommended grades: 6-12
Prior to our visit, we will provide the teacher with instructions on making crystals so the students can make their own before the outreach. On the day of the visit, we’ll bring laptops and QX5 digital microscopes so students can observe both the crystals they have made as well as others we will bring. We’ll demonstrate techniques such as time-lapse photography and students will have the opportunity to photograph their own samples and put them on this Web site!
Preparing for Our Visit
We provide downloadable Pre/Post Materials for some of these activities (listed below), to be used prior to and following our educator's visit to your class. We encourage teachers to take advantage of these materials, which help students prepare for and retain the subject matter covered during the outreach session.
Please be prepared to stay with your class at all times during the outreach. Our educators are not responsible for the class, and therefore the regular room teacher must be present. In cases of a substitute, call ahead to the Center so that proper arrangements can be made.
For more information contact Felicia Chavez at chavez@magnet.fsu.edu or (850) 645-0034.
