Whenever you read the nutritional information on a cereal box, you always see “iron”. Iron is a metal and it’s in cereal. Have you ever thought it possible for a magnet to attract cereal?
What you need:
• Water
• Preferred cereal with iron listed in its label
• A neodymium magnet
• A clear water bottle
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How to do it:
1. Get the clear bottle and fill it with water until a third of it is full.
2. Put some cereal into the bottled water.
3. Shake the bottle.
4. Soak the cereal in the water overnight if they don’t break up or dissolve after shaking.
5. Once the cereal breaks into smaller bits put the magnet on the outer surface of the bottle so that you can isolate the iron in the cereal. You can rotate the bottle so that more mushy liquid can touch the magnetized side.
6. Keep rotating the bottle until only solid material is at the magnetized site. Slide the magnet slowly to see the pieces of iron adhered to the magnetized side of the bottle.
Analysis
Isn’t it astonishing to find iron in your favorite cereal? The moment you moved the magnet, you were able to move the iron particles from the cereal. They also aligned with the magnetic field.
As you know, iron an important element to the human body. It aids in the production of hemoglobin, which carries oxygen in the red blood cells. Red blood cells carry oxygenated blood from the lungs to the rest of the body. When we are deficient in iron, we start to experience dizziness, weight loss, low energy, shortness of breath, irritability, and headaches.
We have to take iron from our diet or from supplements because our bodies don’t manufacture it. Some foods, such as cereal, are enriched with iron. If you use a type of cereal that has high amounts of iron, the easier this project will be.