Imperial researchers visit Penwortham Primary School to deliver a workshop on magnetism to ninety Year 3 children.
On the 1st of December 2016, Simon Wyatt, 2nd year HexMat PhD student at Imperial, led a team of postgraduate students and postdocs to Penwortham Primary School to deliver a workshop on magnetism to about ninety Year 3 children (ages 6-7). [1]
[1] Simon Wyatt with postgraduate students; Alex Foden, Zebang Zhen, Bo Chen, Lucy Reynolds, Jim Hickey, Paul Weifeng, David Wilson and Postdocs, Dr Zhen Zhang and Dr Mitch Cuddihy.
In the usual format, this was a half day workshop, starting with Simon giving an Introduction to magnetism with interactive demos [1], followed by several activities, including making a paper clip chain using a magnet, showing field lines using iron filings and a treasure hunt to find magnetic items in the classroom [2]
[2] Imperial volunteers assisting students with the activities
The final session ended with interactive demos tables which allowed the students to get up close to items they would not normally have access to in schools:
- Extracting iron from a bowl of cereal – Lucy Reynolds
- Strong and weak magnets (neodymium magnets) – Alex Foden
- Fun with iron filings – Jim Hickey
- Eddy current magic – Simon Wyatt
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Reporter
Saira Naeem
Department of Mechanical Engineering
