Weekly blog by Charlie and Liberty

In science this week our task was to make our own magnetic compasses.

We needed:

  • A bar magnet
  • A flat plastic lid
  •  A plastic bowl
  • Water
  • Compass template

We had to:

  1. Cut the compass template out and stick it on the plastic lid
  2. Half fill the bowl with water and float the lid on top
  3. Then we placed the magnet on top of the compass template with the north side of the magnet facing north

Miss Brown hid treasure (well, a piece of paper) around the playground and we used our compasses to see if we could find the piece of paper.  The north side of the magnet, which was floating on the water, pointed the way to the North Pole. We used this to show us the way to our treasure. Our groups had to find the treasure which was hid at North West and South.

Liberty – it was quite tricky because you had to be patient for the magnet to turn to the north.

Charlie – I found it easy because the south side of the magnet pointed straight at the piece of paper.

How does it work?

Magnets have two poles, north and south. North and south are attracted to each other but north and north repel. The Earth’s magnetic pull pulls the magnet's North Pole towards the magnetic South Pole, which is the geographic North Pole.  (Confusing we know!)

Our thoughts

Liberty – I enjoyed it because we got chocolate at the end

Charlie- I also enjoyed it because we got chocolate

Take a closer look at our photos in our photo gallery!