Download Names: Jarred Gurss, Kateri Kellenberger, Leah Parker, Bailey

Names: Jarred Gurss, Kateri Kellenberger, Leah Parker, Bailey Fisher
Science period: 1
Language A period: 2
TITLE: Electrical energy
QUESTION: How does an electric current affect the needle of a compass?
HYPOTHESIS: If we connect the wire onto the battery and hold it over the compass, then the
compass will start spinning, because the energy going from the battery to the compass will create
electricity and make the needle in the compass move.
OBSERVATIONS AND DATA: Before we did anything: Battery was firmly in the holder, wire was
tightly on, was a Duracell battery wire was bent around connecting to each side, compass not
moving, the holder is cool.
After the wire was over the compass: compass was spinning around, the pinchers that where
connect to the battery were hot, wires still the same have not moved, battery is hot, and holder is
warm not as hot as the battery.
CONCLUSION: Out hypothesis was “If we connect the wire onto the battery and hold it over the
compass, then the compass will start spinning, because the energy going from the battery to the
compass will create electricity and make the needle in the compass move.” We accept our
hypothesis. The reason why is because, the electric current affected the compass, because the
electric current caused a magnetic field. This caused the needle to move. The needle of the
compass is a magnet. That is what keeps it pointing to the north. Once the battery’s energy was
changed to magnetic and it was attracted to the magnet in the compass it caused the arrow to
move, because when to magnets come together they either try to pull apart or come together. That
was also our relationship between the two. The reason why is, because the battery electricity got
turned into a magnetic electricity and the compass was already a magnet. The potential energy
was the energy in the battery waiting to be used, and the kinetic energy was the energy being
transferred from the battery to the wire making the compass spin. Finally, we conserved energy
when the battery was not being used, because it was our energy source. This experiment went
from chemical energy to electrical energy.
SUMMARY OF STATION ARTICLE: The battery and the wire got turned into magnetic energy when
the wire was over the magnet. When the compass was moved over the wire it moved in the
opposite direction, because of the push, pull force between the two magnets. In this experiment it
went from chemical energy to electrical energy.
REAL WORLD APPLICATION: The real world application would be two magnets pulling together
to point north on a compass.
STATION REPORT SUMMARY
Report Response
Go to person
Present the question.
How does an electric current affect the needle of a compass?
Leah Parker
Demonstration: What did you do?
What we had to do was convert the energy from the battery to the compass to make it
spin.
Kateri
Kellenberger
What were the energy transformations?
The energy transformations in this experiment were the chemical energy in the battery
to the compass which was magnetic energy once the wire was connected to the
battery and over the compass
Explain what was happening at your station.
The chemical energy from the battery was converted through the wire and held over
the compass to make the compass spin converting the chemical energy into magnetic
energy.
Jarred Gurss
Additional information:
Bailey Fisher was not here for this experiment
Jarred Gurss,
Leah Parker,
Kateri
Kellenberger
Jarred Gurss