Aug 152013


Many breakfast cereals are fortified with iron, which is essential for transport of oxygen in blood throughout human bodies. The iron is simply sprayed on the cereal and can be separated by physical processes. Students in this lesson use bar magnets to extract iron from crushed up breakfast cereals. Five different cereals are used for the experiment including those with different iron concentrations based on nutritional information. Iron extracted from each cereal type is weighed and compared to the other cereals and the nutritional information on the box.


  • Extract iron from fortified breakfast cereal
  • Conduct an experiment to determine which cereals have the most iron
  • Separate a mixture of cereal and water into magnetic and non-magnetic categories


Lesson Plan

Lesson created by Brook Wilke