Birmingham July 2012

Sunday 8th July The first lecture of the day was really a discussion about electricity and how we use models in physics (and chemistry). Some of what I’ve written is a bit disjointed as I was trying to follow the discussion. Jim Woodfin We started off looking at ammeters. Analogue ammeters use a moving needle […]

Birmingham July 2012

Saturday July 7th The last lecture of the day was The Black Hole Hunter’s essential toolkit given by Dr Somak Raychaudhury Black holes are believed to be a key ingredient of how galaxies have evolved which compensates a little for their bad press. The escape velocity is the speed needed to “break free” from a […]

Birmingham July 2012

Saturday 7th July A method of modelling projectile motion. The idea is that students use the formulae for horizontal and vertical motion (under the force of gravity) to make the model. The ruler direction gives the horizontal component of the distance travelled (distance = horizontal velocity x time). The lengths of the string are the […]

Birmingham July 2012

Saturday 7th July The fourth lecture/demonstration was “Earth Science: The Seismology story for ages 14 to 19” given by Stephen Davies, ESEU facilitator. Looking inside the Earth with physics is needed to locate the materials (monitoring and metal detecting). Physics is needed for the mineral exploitation. Physics is even needed in archaeology. Physics produces the […]

Birmingham July 2012

Saturday July 7th The third lecture was given by Lynne Long, Schools Liaison Officer for the School of Physics and Astronomy at Birmingham University. She started her lecture by looking at something really cold. Children are fascinated by liquid nitrogen because it looks hot, although steam vapour goes up. Not terribly clear in the above […]

Birmingham July 2012

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]