The picture above is ferrofluid (on a magnetized bolt). This and other toys I have brought to class can be found at Educational Innovations.
Some other sites to find excellent "physics toys" are
(1) scitoys.com (2) edsci.com Edmunds
Scientific. (3)
Arbor Scientific
(And, here is something different: "pong" with E and B fields moderating particle motion. http://www.theuniverseandmore.com/)
This week we are in Ch 6, learning about "H fields", the magnetic analog of the D-field for electricity. H helps us figure out how materials respond to magnetic fields, creating their OWN (albeit usually quite small) B-field in response.
I welcome your comments on the class and this website.
Send them to steven.pollock at colorado.edu
(Thanks to Prof. Chuck Rogers for many of our home page image ideas!)