On-site Outreach and Tours for Students
The Magnet Lab offers a variety of free on-site educational opportunities for students from elementary to high school. These opportunities combine a tour with a grade-appropriate, hands-on activity. If you're interested in an outreach activity conducted by Mag Lab educators in your own classroom, please see our Classroom Outreach page.
Touring students examine Florida Bitter discs, a key component of our magnets.
Each on-site visit starts with an hour-long tour, led by a Mag Lab scientist or a professional educator from the Center. Highlights of the tour include the electronics shop, the pulsed magnet shop, the resistive magnet shop and the world-record hybrid magnet. Students see real-world scientific research being conducted at a national science research facility.
Following the tour, a Center educator will engage your students in a hands-on activity related to the tour. Covering topics from magnetism to electricity to molecules, these activities challenge students to ask and answer questions about the world around them. Sessions are tailored to specific grade levels and last from 45 minutes to an hour. Choose from one of the activities listed below, or call us to customize a program to meet your specific needs.
These visits can be arranged on Tuesdays, Wednesdays or Thursdays. Please plan to spend a total of two hours for the tour and outreach activity combined. Be prepared to stay with your students at all times during their visit to the lab; our educators and tour guides are not responsible for the class. Outreach and Tour activities are only available for fourth grade classes and higher.
The following activities are offered for outreach visits to the Mag Lab.
Build an Electromagnet: Turn Magnets On & Off
Combining items commonly found in and around your house, you can create an electromagnet. Students are given the items and the basic directions for creating an electromagnet that is strong enough to pick up paper clips. They are then encouraged to modify their magnets and note the effects that each change brings to the strength of the magnet.
Download Pre/Post Materials (PDF).
Jumbo-size atoms teach students what molecules are made of.
Electricity, Static & Currents: The Power All Around Us
The motion of charged particles creates magnetic fields, but the actual motion of those particles is just as important as the fields they create. This activity aims to show what electricity is and how it travels. Students will create series circuits and parallel circuits using light bulbs as test units, then will see a Van de Graaff generator create electric sparks that can be used to transfer charges.
Download Pre/Post Materials (PDF).
Electromagnets: The Best of Both Worlds
This activity combines the Build an Electromagnet and Superconductivity activities.
Download Pre/Post Materials (PDF).
Ion Motors: Turn, Turn, Turn
We apply an electric charge to create a current in both a wire and an ionized solution. This shows principles of electricity, magnetism and chemistry as the students observe motion and changes right before their eyes.
Lenz's Law: Taming the Eddy currents
Science often presents some interesting principles, and this outreach is the investigation of one of them. It builds on the principles covered in Build an Electromagnet, challenging students to create a small electric motor.
Download Pre/Post Materials (PDF).
Molecule Madness: Compounds of our Creation
This is an opportunity to explore the smallest world around us by allowing the students to discover atoms. 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).
Spectrum Analysis: The Fingerprints of Gases
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).
Superconductivity: A Matter of Temperature
Students drive a discussion on principles and properties of magnets, then construct their own electromagnets and test them. After discussing the variables that affect the strength of their magnets, they will see how temperature is the ultimate variable when dealing with electromagnets. The lesson concludes with an explanation and demonstration of the Meissner Effect
Preparing for your Visit
We provide downloadable Pre/Post Materials for some of these activities (listed below), to be used prior to and following your visit to the Mag Lab. We encourage teachers to take advantage of these materials, which help students prepare for and retain the subject matter covered during your class’s visit.
You can get the most out of your class’s visit to the Mag Lab by doing the following:
- Bring one chaperone for every 10 students.
- Please be prompt.
- Prepare your students with the pre-outreach materials. This will help both your students and our guides get the most out of the tours.
- Ask questions! Guides love students (and teachers!) who ask good questions about what they see and about careers at the lab.
We have a steady stream of school groups, scientists and other visitors at the lab. For a list of recent and upcoming visitors, please see our Mag Lab Visitors page.
For information on student tours contact Felicia Hancock at hancock@magnet.fsu.edu or
(850) 645-0034.
For information on tours for the general public, please see our Public Tours page.
