Magnets: why do some things stick to a magnet and others do not?Investigateabout 15 min
Investigating Magnets: Fair Tests and Evidence
Predict, measure, and conclude from home experiments
Plan fair-test magnet investigations at home, collect results in tables, and decide what the evidence shows about magnet strength, distance, shielding, and damage.
In this part you’ll
- Predict and test how many paper clips a magnet holds at different distances and record the results in a table.
- Design a fair-test investigation to compare whether heating, dropping, or hammering a magnet changes how many paper clips it can hold.
- Use a compass to map the magnetic field around a bar magnet and compare the field pattern near each pole.
- Compare evidence from shielding tests with paper, cardboard, plastic, water, and a steel sheet to identify which materials block magnetic effects.
- Draw a conclusion from collected evidence about whether both poles of a magnet hold the same number of paper clips.
In this lesson, you are the investigator. You will change one thing at a time, measure carefully, and use evidence to answer questions about magnets. The textbook Curiosity: Textbook of Science for Grade 6, Chapter 4 (Exploring Magnets) encourages careful observation and recording when exploring magnets.
A fair test means: change only one variable, keep all other variables the same, and repeat the measurement. For magnet tests, use the same magnet or identical magnets, the same pole, the same kind of paper clips, and the same lifting or counting method. If you change two things at once, you cannot know which one caused the result.
Always keep magnets away from phones, cards, and medical devices. Ask an adult before heating or hammering a magnet.
Recording evidence in a table
A results table helps you compare trials. For a pole-strength test, it might look like this:
| Pole | Prediction | Trial 1 | Trial 2 | Trial 3 | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| North pole | 10 clips | 12 | 11 | 13 | 12 |
| South pole | 10 clips | 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 |
Do not decide from one trial. Repeating a test and finding the average makes small errors less important. After collecting evidence, ask: What does the evidence show, not what do I wish it showed?
Worked example
0 / 6 steps shownWorked example: Distance and paper clips
A student wants to know how distance changes a magnet's hold. They place a bar magnet flat and use stacks of paper sheets to create distance. They use the same pole and identical clips. Their results are: 0 sheets—14 clips, 5 sheets—8 clips, 10 sheets—4 clips, 15 sheets—1 clip.
Predict first
Try it
Reflect
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Keep this
Key ideas from investigating magnets
- A fair test changes one variable and keeps other variables the same.
- Magnetic attraction decreases with distance from the magnet.
- Paper, cardboard, plastic, and water usually do little to block magnetic effects; a steel sheet can reduce them by redirecting the field.
- Both poles of a bar magnet usually hold about the same number of paper clips.
- Heating, hammering, or dropping can weaken some magnets by disturbing their internal magnetic order.
- Compass mapping shows the magnetic field pattern looping from pole to pole.
Where this comes from
Sources
Curiosity: Textbook of Science for Grade 6, Chapter 4 (Exploring Magnets) (opens another website) — NCERTawaiting owner check
Magnets and magnetic materials: which objects a magnet attracts (iron, nickel, cobalt) and which it does not; poles of a bar magnet; attraction and repulsion between poles; the magnetic compass and finding directions; keeping magnets safe. NCERT Class 6 Science (Curiosity), Reprint 2026-27.
Electricity explained: How electricity is generated (opens another website) — U.S. Energy Information Administrationawaiting owner check
Supports Faraday's 1831 discovery that moving a magnet in a coil induces a current, the Faraday disk as the forerunner of generators, the rotor/stator picture, and turbines driven by steam, water, gas or wind.
Loudspeaker (opens another website) — Encyclopaedia Britannicaawaiting check
Supports how a loudspeaker's voice coil and magnet convert a varying electric current into the motion of a diaphragm, which pushes the air into a sound wave; the reverse idea underlies a microphone.
End of Investigate
What you just read
- Predict and test how many paper clips a magnet holds at different distances and record the results in a table.
- Design a fair-test investigation to compare whether heating, dropping, or hammering a magnet changes how many paper clips it can hold.
- Use a compass to map the magnetic field around a bar magnet and compare the field pattern near each pole.
- Compare evidence from shielding tests with paper, cardboard, plastic, water, and a steel sheet to identify which materials block magnetic effects.
- Draw a conclusion from collected evidence about whether both poles of a magnet hold the same number of paper clips.
- Next depthGo deeper: Go deeperMechanisms, reasoning, calculations and nuance.
- Practise52 questionsHints and a worked solution for every question — or play a 10-question round.
- Step backUnderstandGo back over the ground before this one — you can move up and down as often as you like.
- TopicAll of magnets: why do some things stick to a magnet and others do not?The whole ladder, the connections and the words to know, on one page.
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Revision 1 · release generation-e78cc3f1-52e6-42f8-af7c-9c6f5571dd1c · reviewed 21/09/2026