Loma Vista Elementary has begun their after school Science Class that takes place every Tuesday afternoon where students learn science standards through hands-on experiments.
Throughout the year students will have focused and hands-on learning on a variety of state standard categories. The first category students have been working on has been magnets and electricity. Students have already built a simple circuit, a compass, and most recently an electro magnet.
For each experiment students first hear a short lesson, are broken into groups, and are provided with all the tools needed for the experiment. They then talk about and make their hypothesis.
For the electro magnet experiment students received a box that had 3 sets of wires of different lengths. One was 100 cm, second was 150 cm, and the last was 200 cm. The box also contained a battery holder, a D cell battery, a bar magnet, a 8 cm nail, and paper clips. The objective was to create an electro magnet and see how many paper clips they could pick up with the electro magnet they created and to discover which wire provided the most force to pick up the most paper clips.
Before the experiment began students made their predictions about which wire would pick up the most paper clips. Students then created their electro magnets by grabbing the wire and creating coils around the 8 cm nail. Next students inserted the D cell battery into the battery holder and attached the ends of the wire wrapped around the nail to the battery. Once that was created the nail became magnetic and would pick up paper clips.
After the experiment was over, students learned that with more coils wrapped around the nail there was more magnetic electricity. In result, the longest wire, the 200 cm wire, could pick up the most paper clips because that could make the most coils.
Each week there is a different hands-on experiment students get to participate in that are in line with what they are learning. After this magnets and electricity category students will move on to rocks and minerals.
The Science Class is taught by Loma Vista teacher, Audrey Radley, and takes place every Tuesday from 2:30 to 4:00 p.m. The class will continue every Tuesday until the end of April.