Classroom Outreach
Want to get your students excited about science? Have a Mag Lab expert visit your classroom!
Outreach Coordinator Carlos Villa teaches students to make an electromagnet.
- We offer a series of specially designed, hands-on lessons
- Each session features inquiry-based activities
- Visits are tailored to your specific needs
- Usually last 45 minutes to an hour
- We provide downloadable pre/post materials in PDF format
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. 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.
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. 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
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.
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.
Download Pre/Post Materials (PDF)
Electromagnets
Recommended grades: 4-6
Students drive a discussion on principles and properties of magnets, then construct their own electromagnets and test their strength. We talk about different types of magnets, how they are used in the home and how magnetic fields can be measured.
Download Pre/Post Materials (PDF)
Static Electricity and Circuits
Recommended grades: 4-8
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 circuits using light bulbs as test units. Then they will use a Van de Graaff generator that can transfer charges.
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.
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.
Spectrum Analysis
Recommended grades: 5-12
During our visit we will discuss the colors of light, then the 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.
Download Pre/Post Materials (PDF).
Molecule Madness
Recommended grades: 5-12
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.
Download Pre/Post Materials (PDF).
QX5 Microscopes
Recommended grades: 6-12
Get familiar with the use of the QX5 digital microscopes so students can observe the world around them in grander scale. Possible items to be examined include student-made crystals and various things found around the classroom.
Download Pre/Post Materials (PDF).
For more information contact Felicia Hancock at hancock@magnet.fsu.edu or (850) 645-0034.
