What is sand made of? Find out with this easy science experiment for kids!

Hi everyone, I'm Kate from Nanogirl. I'm a marine biologist and that means that in the summer I love spending time at the beach with all the sand. But have you ever thought what is sand? Well did you know sand is actually a mixture of more than one type of material crowned out really really small? You can investigate what's in sand using just a magnet. My magnet is really tiny so I stuck it on the end of a paper clip to make it easier to hold. I've got some sand. If I just pour it out onto my paper and smush it around a bit. If there's anything magnetic in this sand it should jump up onto my magnet when I run it over the surface. So let's take a little look. I'm just going to run this magnet really carefully over the surface of the sand and see what jumps up. Oh look at that! There's loads of black sand on the top of my magnet. That's iron and that's come from the rocks around the beach that have been ground up into really tiny particles by waves. Next time you're at the beach pack a magnet and go hunting for what's hidden in the sand. Have an awesome summer. Bye!