Skip to content
Ellis Abel Learns.

In my own words · Burke County, NC

Why I love magnets

A test model of the long magnetometer boom for the Europa Clipper spacecraft laid out for checkout at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Magnets" page — read by families in Burke County, NC.
A test model of the long magnetometer boom for the Europa Clipper spacecraft laid out for checkout at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. NASA/JPL-Caltech · Public domain
  • It pushes without touching.
  • There is something there I cannot see.
  • The whole earth is one.

You can love magnets in Burke County.

What it really is

A magnet makes a field that pulls or pushes other magnets without contact.

Three things to try today

  1. Find what a magnet sticks to and what it does not.
  2. Make a list of both.
  3. Find the rule.

For the grown-up reading this

A child in Burke County, NC who loves magnets is not unusual. A child in Burke County, NC who is told that loving magnets is unusual — that is the problem. Burke County is one of 100 counties in North Carolina.

Sorting into two piles and finding the rule is classification, the oldest scientific act.

If the kid who loves this is a girl

Read what one popular teacher said to one little girl who took out the classroom trash without being asked — and what that girl did with the rest of her life.

Girls are great at math — Burke County, NC →

Love something else too

Technicians in clean-room gear install guidance, navigation and control electronics boxes into the Juno spacecraft. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Electronics" page — read by families in Burke County, NC.Why I love electronicsA technician sets up wiring and monitoring equipment at Launch Pad 39A for a shuttle tanking test. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Electricity" page — read by families in Burke County, NC.Why I love electricityTwo rocket engine tests fire at once on the test stands at Stennis Space Center, throwing huge white exhaust plumes into the air. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Energy" page — read by families in Burke County, NC.Why I love energyThe two-bladed Mod-1 wind turbine standing on its lattice tower on a hilltop at Boone, North Carolina. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Wind Power" page — read by families in Burke County, NC.Why I love windAn orange-and-white Saildrone autonomous research vessel under sail on the water near San Francisco Bay. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Oceans" page — read by families in Burke County, NC.Why I love the oceanA USGS cartographer bends over a light table, scribing contour lines by hand onto a topographic map separation. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Maps" page — read by families in Burke County, NC.Why I love mapsA worker checks a replacement distillation assembly for the space station's water recycling system in a processing facility. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Recycling" page — read by families in Burke County, NC.Why I love recyclingAn aerial photograph of the Vehicle Assembly Building under construction at Kennedy Space Center, its steel frame still open to the sky. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Building" page — read by families in Burke County, NC.Why I love building

Near Burke County

Why I love magnets, everywhere in the US · All things to love · STEM jobs you could do · Summer camps in Burke County