Saturday 7th July The second lecture was about Materials in action given by Dr Diane Aston, training and education executive at the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining. Dr Aston began by explaining that everything we use or make has its origins in the Earth’s crust. Geologists, geophysicists and geochemists locate the materials. Then mining […]
Read more "Birmingham July 2012"Saturday 7th July The first lecture of the day was actually a problem solving activity with Professor Martin Freer. When we teachers are teaching A level physics we are so wrapped up in getting the syllabus finished that we don’t have much time for getting the students to think more deeply about the physics they […]
Read more "Birmingham July 2012"Friday 6th July The third lecture was given by Jim Woodfin of Queen Mary, University of London. The lecture was called Electrical conduction (the full story). Whatever school year you are in you will learn something about electricity and your teacher will use models to help you learn. The problem is that none of the […]
Read more "Birmingham July 2012"Friday 6th July The second lecture was entitled Space, Science and SOHO given By Anu Ojha, who is director of the National Space Centre. He began by asking, where does space begin? The answer is we don’t actually know although the most commonly accepted boundary is about 100km above the Earth’s mean sea level. Why […]
Read more "Birmingham July 2012"Friday 6th July The first lecture of the day was given by Dr Christina Lazzeroni on cloud chambers. Dr Lazzeroni started her lecture by setting up a cloud chamber which used a fish tank and low sodium salt (which is mildly radioactive). Putting dry ice into the insulated base of the bubble chamber. Putting the […]
Read more "Birmingham July 2012"The IOP together with the Armourers & Brasiers’ Company and SEPnet put on courses three times a year at different Universities for teachers. The course runs for three days. The aims of the course are: To update knowledge of recent developments in physics To explore new practical activities and resources for use in the classroom […]
Read more "Birmingham July 2012"The fourth lecture was about a topic my year 13 students get to know and love: Fields and Potential. Given By Robert Birke. Detecting the electric force between two charged plates. When you are doing KS3 and KS4 physics you learn there are different kinds of force divided up into two groups: Contact (friction, drag, […]
Read more "QMU–July 2012"The third lecture was given by Dr Ben Still on the neutrino and particle physics, Particle physicists try to discover the fundamental elementary particles. Nature’s building blocks can be seen in the standard model. These appeared within a few seconds after the big bang. Note that the Higgs hasn’t been added yet. Theory needs it […]
Read more "QMU–July 2012"The second lecture was given by Dr Theo Kreouzis about photovoltaic cells. The intensity of direct sunlight is about 1000 Wm^-2 (which is an awful lot). This gives about 150Wm^-2 over a year in the UK. Solar power is now a viable option as photovoltaics are much cheaper now. Students often get the photovoltaic effect […]
Read more "QMU – July 2012"The first lecture of day was given by Professor Carl Murray. He discussed the Cassini mission to Saturn. He is the only UK member of the imaging team and he described recent results which could impact on our understanding of planetary formation. Cassini–Huygens is a flagship-class NASA–ESA–ASIspacecraft sent to the Saturn system. It has studied […]
Read more "QMU – 2012"
helen the hare 