Try this at home: Make your own Compass

Materials needed:
a magnet (know which end is the north pole)
a needle or sewing pin
a non-metal bowl of water
a cork or soda bottle cap (anything that floats really).

Procedures:
1. Take the needle and rub it various times on the North end of the magnet
2. Lay the needle on the cap/cork/whatever flotation device chosen
3. Place floaty device with needle on the water

Results:
The pin will now be pointing north and you have made your own compass right in the comfort of your own home.

Why? When you rubbed the needle on the magnet, it picked up magnetic charge- it will also attract other needles now! Letting it float on water allows it to be pulled by Earth's magnetic field. If you try turning it away, it will just turn right back to where it was pointing before- to magnetic north.

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It's really cool. I just showed this to my roommate and a friend of mine who'd never seen this before, and they both thought it was pretty great- yeah, we're not geeks at all, spending a Friday night in making a compass! haha Well it was a quiet evening, and we all thought it was pretty neat.

What's interesting is that it should be obvious what would happen since regular store-bought compasses work the same way! But it is still pretty neat! Why? I can't quite explain, but something about buying a compass at the store, which you just assume is going to point north... but then you take a plain ol' sewing needle, rub it on a plain ol' magnet, put it in some plain ol' water, and it works just like that fancy compass! It's pretty cool! And it shows Earth's magnetic field- a force greater than ourselves. Whereas a compass, well, it's *supposed* to point north! Nothing special there!

That's the beauty of science experiments in teaching...

Sadly in Spain, Science experiments are not that common in the classrooms! I have various theories as to why but mostly it's speculation on my part. It's really a shame because science is the perfect hands-on subject, and EVEN MORE SO when you're studying it in a foreign language, as my students here in Spain are taking science in English!

I'm really liking teaching Science to 4th, 5th, and 6th grade. Especially 6th grade, because it's the most advanced, so I have to actually go back and research all this material I knew well back in school and then in my adult life forgot about it until now. For me it's fun, and I enjoy explaining what I've re-learned to my 6th-graders. It's material that even a lot of adults don't understand unless they're working in that field, so I can explain things that I know aren't obvious or intuitive. Not like teaching English language, where I have to abstractly guess how much my students understand of what I'm telling them!