Invisible forces surround the Earth. These forces protect us from harmful radiation and shape the solar wind into the magical aurora at the North and South Poles.
Captivate your students with levitating paper clips and the wonder of creating their own magnetic field patterns. Make a quadrupole like the ones used to focus a particle beam in a synchrotron and find out how we know Earth’s secret magnetic past from rocks found at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
Why teach this?
Magnetism is a familiar concept to most students. Push their understanding to the next level in this lesson that relates their existing knowledge to a deeper understanding of the magnetic properties of the Earth and the Sun and the relationship between them.
Key curriculum links
KS3 physics students should be able to describe how to observe the effects of a magnetic field and explain how the Earth behaves as if it contains a giant magnet.
