What did Victorian Children play with? If you keep a sharp lookout, sooner or later you will come across Victorian toys in museums or antique shops. The pictures on these pages will give you some idea of what they are like. Victorian children used to play with beautiful dolls, gaily painted rocking horses, mechanical, toys that were exact replicas of such things as steam trains, correct in every detail, and perhaps,...

What is an Electromagnet? A compass needle will only point north- south if there are no other magnets near it. If there are, the needle will be attracted towards them and will point in a different direction or be deflected. It was discovered that if a compass was held near a wire carrying an electric current, the needle was deflected. But, if the current was switched off the needle swung back...

Where is the Earth’s South Pole? The earth has north and south geographic poles. If we could draw a line between these two poles it would pass through the center of the Earth. It would also lie along the axis about which the earth Rotates. The Earth acts like a giant magnet and so also has north and south magnetic poles. The magnetic poles are not always in the same  place....

How does a compass work? A magnet will always point north- south because it is attracted to the north and south magnetic poles of the earth. This property is used in the compass. A small needle – like magnet with its north and south poles marked is balanced on a pivot. The pivot is placed in the center of a card with all the directions or ‘points of the compass’ marked...

What are the poles of magnet? Two magnets are illustrated above. The one on the left is known as a horseshoe magnet and the one on the right is known as a bar magnet. If some small pieces of iron are put near either of these magnets most of them will cluster around the ends  of the magnet. This means that the magnetic effect is strongest at the ends. These are...

Who discovered the first magnet?   In about 600 BC a Greek called Thales found a rock which attracted bits of iron to it. He named this rock ‘magnets’ after the town Magnets where it was found. The rock he found was an iron ore but other substances act  in the same way. We call them magnets. Materials which are attracted to a magnet are said to be magnetic. Iron and...

How do you make a spore print?  To make spore print, you need to find a mushroom or toadstool which has gills under the cap. Carefully remove the cap from the stem ( or stipe) and place it, gills downward, onto a piece of clean white paper. Leave the cap undisturbed on the paper for a day or so. When you take the cap off the paper, you will see a...

How do fungi reproduce themselves? Under the top part of a mushroom or toadstool 9 the part called the cap) there are usually lots of thin, delicate folds called gills. Within the gills, millions of spores, which look like tiny specks of dust, are formed. When ripe, these spores drop from the gills and are carried away. Many land in places where they cannot grow into a new fungus, but those...