Magnets & Motors
Lesson 9
Designing An Experiment To Test The Strength Of An Electromagnet
Students identify several variables they think may have an affect on electromagnetic strength, and then design an experiment to test their prediction.
3. Lesson set up and Management
Energy Sources and Kinds: Understand that energy is a property of substances and comes in many forms, including stored energy, energy of motion, heat energy, and other forms of energy (ST01 1.1.4).
Energy Transfer and Transformation: Determine factors that affect rate and amount of energy transfer; associate a decrease in one form of energy and an increase in another (ST01 1.2.2).
Nature of Forces: Know the factors that determine the strength and interactions of the various forces (CH01 1.3.1).
Questioning: Generate questions that can be answered through scientific investigations (IN01.2.1.1).
Planning and Conducting Investigations: Plan, conduct, and evaluate scientific investigations, using appropriate equipment, mathematics, and safety procedures (IN02.2.1.2).
Explaining: Use evidence from scientific investigations to think critically and logically to develop descriptions, explanations, and predictions (INO3 2.1.3).
Modeling: Correlate models of the behavior of objects, events, or processes to the behavior of the actual things under investigation; test models by predicting and observing actual behaviors or processes (IN04 2.1.4).
Evaluating Inconsistencies: Provide more than one explanation for events or phenomena; defend or refute the explanations using evidence (IN08 2.2.8).
Designing and Testing Solutions: Identify, design, and test alternative solutions to a challenge or problem (DE02 3.1.2).
Plan and conduct investigations. Think critically and logically.
3. Lesson set up and Management
Materials:
Copy Activity Sheet 3 (one for each student) and Activity Sheet 4 (one for each group of four students).
Student Management:
Students will be part of a four-person team. Give students time to decide which variable they want to test. Make sure you go over what a “fair test” is again and which variables might be changed and which variables should be kept the same.
Gluing the cards on the planning boards can be optional (you could just have students write on the planning boards). Also, make sure that students don’t design an experiment using materials you are unable to obtain.
Writing:
Students will be writing out their plans for the experiment using Activity Sheets 3 and 4.
Reading:
Page 63 “Who Is This Story About?”