Students explore the relationship between electricity and magnetism. Through investigation, students observe that electricity moving through a wire generates a magnetic field around the wire. Students then build a working model of an electromagnet. Students use the model to explore how the strength of an electromagnet can be changed by altering the number of coils of wire wrapped around an iron core and by changing the size of the core.

Student Resources

• 7.1 Vocabulary
• 7.2 Electricity and Magnetism
• 7.3 Building an Electromagnet
• 7.4 Graphing Electromagnet Results
• 7.5 Section 7 Assessment

Learn by Reading

For additional content-area reading, check out the Houghton Mifflin Science eBook: Grade 4, Unit F, page 68–71.