As with all physics questions, the answer can vary depending on what

level of specificity you are looking for based on level. Here I try to
explain what I think are the main take away concepts that one should
be familiar with at each stage of progression! We can talk about WHAT
magnetism is, but you would have to turn to philosophy to try to
answer WHY magnetism exists.

But remember that when discussing and interpreting physical

phenomena (physics) it's always important to remember we can only
answer HOW things happen. There is a beautiful video of Richard
Feynmann explaining this very topic better than I could ever hope to
here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO0r930Sn_8 .

What is Magnetism?
------------------------------
Middle School:

Magnetism is a force that results from certain 'magnetic' objects that

can attract or repel other magnetic objects. The force between two
magnetic objects is stronger the closer they are together, and weaker
the farther they are apart. Think of the magnets you stick on your
refrigerator! The force that holds it up only occurs when you bring the
magnet close to the surface of your refrigerator.

Magnets always have two "poles" which is a fancy way of saying there
are 2 points that are the origins of the force. They are usually
designated "North" and "South", just like the Earth's North and South
poles! When two magnets are near each other whether they repel or
attract each other depends on their orientation! North and South are
attracted to each other, but north repels north and south repels south.
Comparing this to the refrigerator magnet, if the surface of the fridge
is 'north' then the back of the magnet MUST be south! If you could peel
off just the back of the magnet and flip it around, you would find that it
wouldn't stick!

There is weird property that results from magnets always having 2

poles.If you have a bar magnet http://tinyurl.com/nsbarmagnet (imagine
a straight metal rod) with north and south poles and cut it in the
middle, you might at first think that you now have split the magnet into
to magnets where one is a 'north magnet' and one is a 'south magnet';
however, this is not the case. Instead, you get two magnets each with
new north and south poles, http://tinyurl.com/splitbarmagnet . This is
different from electricity where if I had a conducting bar where one
side was positive and one side was negative and I split them, then I
WOULD have one positive bar and one negative bar!

Highschool: Same as above, but with the following:

The magnetic and electric forces are very closely related to each
other and ultimately come from the same underlying phenomena. The
exact mechanisms require quantum mechanics (the physics of small
scales) to explain, but on larger scales we can take the electric and
magnetic fields to be two different sides of an overall Electromagnetic
field; akin to how heads and tails are both parts of one coin.
Electromagnetic interaction (electrical and magnetic) between
particles is one of the 4 fundamental forces that govern the known
physics of the universe (along with gravity, the strong force, and the
weak force). Many of the forces and phenomena that we observe on
large scales can actually be resolved to the electricmagnetic force.

For example, light is radiation that results from energy propagating

electromagnetic fields. Another phenomena resulting the
electromagnetic force is the emission of radiation from all normal
matter with thermal energy, called blackbody radiation. The radiation
can fall into a wide range of both visible and invisible spectrums with
respect to the human eye. The intense light emitted by the sun is
blackbody radiation readily visible by the human eye, but the radiation
emitted by the human is blackbody radiation in the infrared range and
is only visible with the aid of detectors (Heat Scopes!)

Magnetism is the force that rises from a magnetic field, B. The

Magnetic field is a vector field which permeates through all space and
with the field having a magnitude and direction at each point. For
example the direction of the earth's magnetic field can be determined
by a compass. Magnetic fields arise from electrons in "motion",
whether this be the electrons moving through space (current) or
'spinning' about their own axis (spin).

There are three main types of magnetism that can occur within
materials: paramagnetism, diamagnetism, and ferromagnetism. They
are separated by the slightly different ways in which their magnetism
arise on very small (quantum) levels. Some materials are naturally
magnetic (like refrigerator magnets?! ) and some materials are only
magnetic once you apply a magnetic field to them.

Charged particles moving in an magnetic field experience something

called a "Lorentz" force. If there is also an electric field, E, the force, F,
on a particle of charge q moving at velocity v in a magnetic field of
strength B is F = q ( E + v x B ).

Because the forces are connected, it's possible to induce a voltage

(Electromotive Force, emf ) and subsequently a current in a conductor
by varying a magnetic field applied with time. This is called "Induction"
and is described by Faraday's law. This the fundament of how a wide
variety of power sources can be converted into electricity. If you've
seen those flashlights that you can shake to charge, what's happening
is that the magnet is passing through the coils and it's 'pushing' the
electrons through a wire with each pass, storing the power in a
temporary source. Fluid flow can also be used to rotate a conductor in
the presence of a magnetic field, and produce electricity,
http://tinyurl.com/o4c5meo. These constructs are called turbines and
the potential that is used to rotate the turbine can vary. For example
wind mills use ambient wind and dams use large repositories of water
to drive the turbines.High pressure steam can also be used. The steam
can be generated with heat from the combustion of coal and oil, or by
the heat resulting from the nuclear fission of radioactive elements like
Uranium.