Magnets pull young students into scientific inquiry. By Judith Kur and Marcia Heitzmann

“I

could make Erin’s magnet jump with my magnet,” was the first response as our first-grade students sat in a circle for our science talk. “Tell us more about it,” we replied. “You have to use the bar magnets and find the two sides that don’t like each other, and when you do, you can make the other magnet jump.” “You used the bar magnets, but do you think we could do that with other magnets?” we asked. A chorus of “yeses,” “nos,” and “maybes” filled the room. “Should we add that to our wonderings?” we asked. We decided to add the question, Do all magnets have sides that like and don’t like each other? to our list of wonderings to test.    In recent years, we have been incorporating more scientific inquiry into our teaching. We have found that scientific inquiry helps students gain insights and increase their understanding of scientific principles (Minstrell 1989). This year, as we approached our unit on magnets with our first-grade students, we 28  Science and Children

Figure 1.

Module content benchmarks matched with student wonderings. Module Content

Our Wonderings

Magnets attract some objects.

What metals do magnets stick to?

Magnets attract objects through many materials.

Can magnets work through things?

Magnets are strongest at the poles.

Are different parts of the magnet stronger?

Like poles repel, unlike poles attract. All magnets have a north and south pole.

Do all magnets have sides that like and don’t like each other?

The north pole of a magnet points to the magnetic north pole of the Earth.

Can we find the north pole on a magnet?

Magnets are useful to man. There are many kinds of magnets. They must be handled with care.

Are some magnets stronger than others? Can we make other things into magnets? Can we break a magnetic field?

decided to incorporate more inquiry into our district’s learning module Magnets: Elementary Science and Technology Module for Primary (State College Area School District 1993). Though we agreed in principle with research that shows that inquiry-based teaching leads to positive attitudes toward science (Shymansky, Kyle, and Alport 1983), we weren’t sure if we could really teach about magnets in a meaningful way through inquiry. We were concerned that our first graders rarely posed wonderings as testable questions, and we worried about not being able to meet district content objectives regarding magnets. Our experience laid these concerns to rest. By restructuring our lessons, using science talks, and listening carefully to our students, we were able to transform students’ surprises and wonderings into testable questions and meet district learning objectives for magnets. With this successful experience under our belts, we can approach inquiry teaching with more confidence.

Thinking Magnets

We had been doing a great deal of sorting in math and thought that a sorting activity would pique student interest in magnets. For this lesson, students worked in pairs, each pair with a bin of materials containing paper, plastic, wood, and metal objects collected from around the classroom. Each pair’s bin contained different materials, but all the bins had a magnet and a few things that were attracted to magnets.

We began by asking students to create a rule for sorting the materials. As the students worked, we walked around asking questions and listening to their ideas. One pair said they were sorting by “heavy and light.” We asked them to explain how they decided if something was heavy or light. They had designed a test to make the determination. They balanced a Popsicle stick on a small block and put the item to be tested on one end of the stick. If the item made the stick go down, then it was considered heavy. By asking the students to think, test, and explain, we were preparing them to “be” scientists. During the science talk that followed, the students shared their rules for sorting. As we expected, half the groups used “magnetic” (items attracted to magnets) as their rule. This led to a discussion about magnets, and the students decided they wanted to learn more about them. During the talk, we asked students the following questions: • How could you tell something was attracted to a magnet? • What items were attracted? • What items were not attracted? • What items in our classroom might be attracted? • What items do you think would not be attracted? The students had many disagreements in answering these questions. Many students were unsure how to answer the questions, so we asked if they would like to test some items to learn more about magnets. They did. This introductory lesson set the tone for the rest of the unit. Our students felt that they were scienJanuary 2008  29

Figure 2.

Students’ “learnings” and the evidence supporting them. What We Learned About Magnets

Our Evidence

Magnets are attracted to some metals.

The magnet stuck to one bell but not the other. The magnet stuck to one coin but not the other. The magnet stuck to one spoon but not the other.

Magnets work through wood, plastic, glass, water, and paper.

The paper clip stuck to the magnet through the plastic, glass, water, and paper.

Magnets are different strengths. Sizes or shapes don’t matter.

The little round magnet held 200 paper clips, but the big horseshoe magnet only held 10 paper clips. The wand magnet held 150 paper clips, and the bar magnet held 5.

The ends of a bar magnet are the strongest. The sides of the round magnets are the strongest. The ends of the horseshoe magnet are the strongest.

The ends held 10 paper clips, and the middle only held 5. The sides of the round magnet held 20 paper clips, the edge held only 8. The ends of the horseshoe magnet held 4 paper clips, while the middle held none.

Magnetic things can be magnetized.

We could magnetize the scissors so that they would pick up the pins. We could magnetize the paper clips to pick up the pins.

The only thing that can break the magnetic field is another magnet.

Paper didn’t make the paper clip fall. Wood didn’t make the paper clip fall. Metal didn’t make the paper clip fall. Plastic didn’t make the paper clip fall. Another magnet made the paper clip fall.

All magnets have sides that attract and repel.

We could make all the magnets push or pull other magnets.

tists, that their questions mattered, and that they had some voice in what they would study. This was evident through their enthusiasm for the topic, the rules they created for “science lab” (work hard, take care of the materials, share your ideas), and their behavior with the materials and toward each other during the investigation.

Listening for Wonderings

Because we wanted the students to be in charge, we began with a free exploration of magnets. We asked students to walk around the room and list three items they were sure would be attracted to a magnet, three items they were sure wouldn’t be attracted, and three items that they were unsure about. Students made predictions and then tested the items they had listed. As the students worked, we circulated among them, watching and listening for their surprises. We rephrased students’ descriptions of “sticking” as “attracted to” but continued to let them construct their own observations. 30  Science and Children

When Charlie was surprised that the magnet was attracted to the metal table but not the metal chair, we helped him turn that statement into the wondering, Are magnets attracted to all metals? We helped him do this by first asking him why that surprised him. He said he thought it would stick because the table and chair are both metal, and magnets stick to metal. We stated, “But it wasn’t attracted to the metal on the chair. What are you thinking now?” He said, “I don’t think they stick to all metals.” Similarly, when Jessica noticed that she could make a paper clip stick to a magnet through a book, we helped her turn that into the wondering, Can magnets work through things? At this point we could see that the students understood that magnets were only attracted to metal objects, but they needed to refine their understanding of this phenomenon. We used their wondering, Do magnets stick to all metals? to set up a lesson in which everything they tested was metal. We used pairs of similar items (such as two spoons, two paintbrushes,

Attracting Student Wonderings and two coins), and in most cases one was attracted to a magnet and the other was not. Again we asked students to make a prediction, give a reason for their prediction, and then test their prediction. Pairing “sticking” and “nonsticking” items allowed us to generate a new list of wonderings. For example, when Steven said that the apple corer did not stick because it was too heavy, we turned that into the wondering, Does weight matter? When Susie said that the magnet stuck to one toy car but not another because one was painted, we turned that into the wondering, Does paint matter? When Elizabeth said that the paintbrush would not stick because it was too rusty, we were able to add the wondering, Does rust matter? to our list. Through these exchanges, we learned that we needed to listen for students’ questions. While the students were testing their predictions, Timmy complained that Katherine’s magnet could be used to lift things up and his could not. We helped him turn this into the wondering, Are some magnets stronger than others?

Multiplying Wonderings

After two science periods, we had a list of many testable questions and were ready to begin our in-depth study of magnets. In the past, we would provide the experimental setup and procedure, but now we wanted students to have a voice in how we could go about answering their wonderings. We started out by presenting one wondering, such as, Are



some parts of a magnet stronger than others?, and had the students decide how we could answer it. Their test ideas included making a chain of paper clips using different parts of the magnet and seeing which parts produced longer chains; trying to pick up bags of paper clips with different parts of the magnet; and putting paper clips at different distances from the magnet and seeing from how far away the different parts of the magnet could attract the paper clips. Their varied ideas provided opportunities for multiple investigations around a single concept. What we, as teachers, discovered was that these multiple representations, using many materials and different types of magnets, led to our students not only clarifying their understandings but also developing new wonderings. For example, when investigating the wondering, Can anything break the magnetic field? Students attached a paper clip to a string and used a magnet to suspend the paper clip above the table. The students put various items (book, piece of wood, metal car, pencil) between the magnet and the paper clip to try and make the paper clip drop. The students tested many items from around the classroom before they discovered that another magnet would work. What surprised us (the teachers) was that students were not ready to stop after they found out the bar magnet worked. They wanted to try other types of magnets and magnets of different strengths.

Constructing the Wonderings

Every science lesson was followed by a science talk. This was our opportunity to come together as a class and share what we learned. It was also an opportunity for us to assess student learning. During these science talks, students attempted to answer our wonderings and supported their claims using evidence they gathered through their experiments. This environment encouraged them to learn from one another and strengthen their understandings of the concepts. With guidance, our first graders generated testable questions and then designed investigations to find the answers. As they counted how many paper clips a magnet would hold or recorded how far away a magnet could be from a paper clip and still attract it, they January 2008  31

Attracting Student Wonderings were collecting data that they used to answer their questions. Our science talks gave the students a chance to communicate their findings and back up their claims with evidence. The science talks were also an important time for students to share what they noticed or were surprised by. While investigating the wondering, Are some parts of the magnet stronger than others?, some students made chains of paper clips on different parts of the magnets. Michael noticed that when he took the magnet away, the paper clips seemed to still stick together. He demonstrated this observation for the class at the science talk. The “oohs” that followed indicated that although some of his classmates had seen the same thing, many others had not and were eager to try it. We then asked if anyone saw this happen with any other materials. When it was clear that no one had, we asked if they thought they could make it work with other things. This led to the class wondering, Can you turn other things into magnets? It was important for us to have the materials on hand during these science talks because it was usually easier for the students to show than to tell. The science talks allowed everyone to share in the surprise and to work together to frame the wonderings into testable questions.

Objectives Through Wonderings

When we embarked on this unit, we worried that students would have trouble posing wonderings that would be testable and we wondered about meeting the specific content objectives in the module. Neither of these concerns came to pass. We discovered that as we questioned and listened to our students, the wonderings we helped them develop led them to a deeper understanding of the content, and these wonderings naturally aligned with the module’s content benchmarks and more (Figure 1, p. 29). Through exploring their wonderings, students generated a list of “learnings” that were supported with multiple examples of evidence (Figure 2, p. 30). These learnings were the foundation for a science conference that was held at the end of the unit. The students worked with a partner, chose a learning, and designed a demonstration to support the statement with evidence. For example, one pair of students chose the learning “you can magnetize things that are magnetic.” They demonstrated magnetizing scissors and paper clips and used them to attract straight pins. They also showed that you could not magnetize items that were not magnetic using a wooden block and a quarter. The learning statements and the science conference provided concrete evidence that our students mastered the concepts of the unit. 32  Science and Children

Connecting to the Standards

This article relates to the following National Science Education Standards (NRC 1996):

Content Standards Grades K–4 Standard A: Science as Inquiry •Abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry Standard B: Physical Science •Properties of objects and materials •Light, heat, electricity, and magnetism

We also discovered that by using their questions, we empowered our students to become scientists. They learned that their questions were important and that they were capable of answering them. As the unit progressed, students asked richer questions and provided more in-depth explanations. As a result of this unit, our students learned not only the content but also how to ask questions and how to talk to their peers—key processes of science—and they all developed a love for (or at least a keen interest in) science. As teachers, we learned we needed to take time to allow students opportunities for multiple representations around a single concept. We also learned that by having science talks, listening to our students, and asking questions, we could use student wonderings to guide a unit and still meet district content standards. And we became better teachers of science! n Judith Kur ([email protected]) and Marcia Heitzmann ([email protected]) are first-grade teachers at Radio Park Elementary in State College, Pennsylvania.

Resources Minstrell, J. 1989. Teaching science for understanding. In Toward the thinking curriculum: Current cognitive research, eds. L.B. Resnick and L.E. Klopfer, 129–149. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. National Research Council (NRC). 1996. National science education standards. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Shymansky, J.A., W.C. Kyle, and J.M. Alport. 1983. The effects of new science curricula on student performance. Journal of Research in Science Teaching 20(5): 387–404. State College Area School District. 1993. Magnets: Elementary science and technology module for primary. State College, PA: State College Area School District.