Magnets create invisible areas called magnetic fields, in which other magnetic things will be attracted or repelled. Magnets usually contain high amounts of the element iron.
Each magnet has two poles, the north pole and the south pole. The North Pole gets its name because it is the magnetic north pole of Earth, which is currently near Ellesmere Island in Northern Canada. This means that the north pole of all magnets on Earth point to this location, including the ones on your refrigerator and the magnets you will use in this experiment. The south pole of all magnets on Earth point to the South Pole in Antarctica. The magnetic poles of the Earth gradually move over time because of the flow of the Earth’s core, which contains a lot of iron.
The term “opposites attract” comes from the concept of magnetism: north-south magnetic interactions will attract each other, while north-north and south-south interactions will repel each other. When bringing a magnet near an object that contains a lot of iron, like a steel paperclip, the magnet can lift up the object. Magnetic fields can be combined to be stronger or weaker depending on how they are put together.
