Conducting a FAIR TEST with magnets!

Ms. Lohitsa
Dec 12, 2016
1 min read

Last week students had a chance to try and create their own experiments to determine which magnet was the strongest. They came up with some excellent ideas to test and see which magnet was the strongest. The problem ended up being that with all of the different tests conducted, we weren't able to figure out which magnet was the strongest.

Our class decided that because each group collected a different kind of data (qualitative and quantitative) and some students estimated, guessed and took approximate calculations that these tests weren't fair and didn't give us conclusive data. As a grade we decided we needed to have everyone conduct the exact same experiment so we could really compare the data from class to class.

The kids decided that they should count out 100 paper clips, put them in a pile and then test one magnet at a time to see how many paper clips the magnet could hold. Each magnet was tested 5 times and the data was recorded in a data table. Then we compared the trials and totals with other students in other classes to determine which magnet was in fact the strongest.

Take a peek of our scientists conducting another fair test: