How Do You Make A Simple Electromagnet (Great For Teaching Kids About Electromagnetism)?
Making an electromagnet is a quick and simple way to learn about electricity and magnetism and how they interact. All you need are just a few items that are probably lying around your house somewhere. All of these items can be found at a hardware store for under five dollars. In this article you were learn how to make an electromagnet and demonstrate how electric currents create a special magnetic field. Before you begin making your electromagnet, you might be curious about how electromagnetism was discovered. In 1882, a Danish physicist named Christian Oersted was demonstrating how a battery works. He noticed that every time he connected the circuit, a nearby compass needle was affected. It turns out that there is a circular magnetic field going around the current in a wire (see the pictures below for a better understanding.) A compass faces north because it’s pointing in the direction of the earth’s magnetic north pole. If you think of the earth as a big magnet (which it is), you can
