TALLAHASSEE (WTXL) - In this week's experiment edition of Tsaparis Tscience, Max meets up with MoLab to do some magnetic and electric demonstrations.
Meet Trish Hanson, she's on a mission to step-up the level of education area students receive on stem subjects, that's science, technology, engineering, and math.
She says, "The teacher is talking about it, teaching about it, we come in and then we bring in the hands on, do, making and creation aspect."
The programs called "MoLab", and right now they use an RV to get them to the schools. But Hanson’s dream is to transform this vehicle into a science laboratory on wheels, "Basically, we want to gut it and create an atmosphere for kids to hop on board. We'll have a microscopy station and we'll have an entomology and biology wall."
So the team is in the midst of an online crowd funding campaign to make their dream a reality. One of MoLab's experiments pertains to magnets and electricity. After the kids learn about the terminology, it's time to get hands-on. "We give them the wands and they try to see if they can make it overcome the force of repulsion," Hanson says.
As the saying goes, "opposites attract". And we were trying to push two like poles towards each other, because of that, these two sides of the magnetic wands will never touch. Meanwhile, when magnets interact with certain metals, their energy creates electricity.
Hanson explains, "A battery is just a portable container of electricity."
Attaching both ends of the wires to the batteries makes a closed circuit, allowing the electricity to flow.
And just like magnets can create electricity, we can use electricity to magnetize a metal rod.
By wrapping the metal in a copper wire attached to a battery, the charge aligns teeny tiny particles called electrons, to turn the metal into a magnet.
According to Hanson, she says, "Kids love it because they try to see how many can they actually get on."
And it's the kids' reactions that drive Hanson to create this mobile laboratory.
She says, "It’s something that's different; it’s something that's new. You know kind of like the book mobile when you were a kid and it was super exciting when it came that's the kind of excitement we want to bring when we pull up into the school."
If you'd like to help with MoLab's fundraiser, click here.
