Investigating Magnetism

Science is an important topic in our urban world as we are surrounded by technology based on the ways that physics, chemistry, biology and all other sciences work. Textbooks are necessary, of course, as are other books that cover the same topics in different ways. The “Investigating Science Challenges” series of books wisely limits itself to the area of physics, what most people think of as science, presenting the material with the key information in small pieces and lots of pictures. Each book has three “Let’s Investigate” sections, an experiment related to the topic using easily available materials and demonstrating a concept given in the text.

Richard Spilsbury has taken on a series of concepts that most people struggle with and has presented them clearly and briefly. He has successfully included both interesting real world facts and definitions on many of the pages and also includes related and exciting photographs. It is great to see a wide variety of young people showing how to do the experiments and illustrating the points of the text. Some of the people appear in more than one book giving more sense of continuity.

It is encouraging that, in addition to the glossary, references and index, there are tips for doing the experiments included at the back of the book. Once readers have used one of the books, they will know what to expect in the others.

Magnets can be endlessly fascinating, a good choice of topic in a series such as this. The experiments require more tools and more specialized tools than those in the other books in the “Investigating Science Challenges” series although there is no way around this given nature of magnetism and the whole topic. The discussions are clear and specific, giving a good starting point to this complex topic. The photograph of the magnetic field around a bar magnet is shown with the magnet above the paper used to show the iron filings. We can only hope that an adult is available to tell readers that it is better to have the magnet below the paper so that you do not have to carefully scrape the filings off the magnet later. Just saying.

Investigating Magnetism introduces the concepts involved in magnetism usefully and interestingly.

The “Investigating Science Challenges” seems to be designed to fill specific curriculum requirements in both science and in research methods. If this is the case, the series is a success as it contains numerous ways to draw students into the topics and experiments that are easy enough for young people to perform while getting a more practical understanding of how science works. A budding scientist or engineer will be particularly attracted to these ideas and to the method of presentation.