Altering this school pupil's hair-style using static
electricity generated by a Van der Graaff generator.
The Glasgow Schools Physics/Technology Initiative is a scheme currently run from the Department of physics and Astronomy taking hands-on demonstrations into the Glasgow Secondary schools. A pilot scheme for the long term project in order to gain experience and feedback from the teachers and children has already been completed. Recently, we received a COPUS development grant to allow the continuation of the scheme until 1997.
The response from the children that have made their own Thunderbirds, Star Trek and batman holograms has been very positive, 20-30 holograms can be made during a time-tabled 50 minute period and the children are particularly pleased to be able to keep their hologram. Other examples of activities all of which are designed to result in the children taking home something to remember, include making 3D stereograms, making biscuit tin pin-hole cameras and taking photographs and making electronic novelty gadgets.
The effectiveness of the effort can be judged at present only by the good impressions made on teachers and children. The pilot was intended as a learning process and indeed the learning curve was very steep. The teachers have been extremely encouraging in their support for what they see as a highly appropriate scheme. For the universities to support the teaching and learning of science in their schools, either through direct financial support or through access to facilities, materials and workshops and for the staff to share their abilities and enthusiasm with schoolchildren is obviously a critical investment.
One specific aim of the initiative is to ease the problem of recruitment into university physics/technology courses by catching the interest of the children at the important ages when they decide what subjects to study at school, and then at university. Therefore it is hoped that the scheme would be welcomed and supported by all the Glasgow area universities.
The need to communicate the excitement of physics to school pupils as an antidote to the perceived difficulty of the subject is obvious. Doing it may not be so easy. It is hoped that through an enthusiastic effort, in making our interactions with the children as exciting, stimulating and enjoyable as possible, in responding to the children at the right level, a valuable, longer term plan will take shape as the result of the pilot scheme.
Credits
Created and maintained by: Ken Skeldon & William Hamish Bell.
Photography: Media Services, Milne Photography, Kenneth Strain, Iain McVicar.
Text by: Rebecca Crawford & Ken Skeldon.
