Paul Doherty & Don Rathjen Paul gave us a brief history of the Exploratorium and its growth over the years. Participants were then split into two groups to explore the Exploratorium’s favorite exhibits. Don and Paul gave tours of the museum and met back together for one big demonstration. Highlights include exploring the reflective properties of the dome at the Palace of Fine Arts and the hidden resonance tube inside one of its pillars. Paul demonstrated the “whirly” sound resonance tube in a larger-than-normal format. A video will be available once its edited.
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Adam Weiner, Bishop School in La Jolla, CA Adam uses movie clips to teach traditional problems to engage students in the problem. (book available for signing) Some movies are good to show to explore “good science” and data can be collected from the clips in order to create problems. Others are examples of “bad science” and can be used to generate discussions about what is wrong based on the science students know. Adam likes action movies such as Spiderman, Spiderman 2, Spiderman 3, XXX, 2001: Space Odyssey, etc. Website: www.hollywoodmoviephysics.com
Dave Kagan introduced the rules & procedure for Share ‘n Tell including the dreaded gong! Bree Barnett Dreyfuss – Amador Valley High School Recently Bree used Energizer AA batteries in a physics lab only to find that several students were being shocked by them. It turns out that the plastic covering on the bottom terminal of the battery was not very well covered and the multi-stranded wire used in the experiment was poking underneath the covering and shorting out the battery. Duracell AA batteries have a better covered bottom terminal. Energizers can be fixed by putting a hole reinforce on…
By Don Rathjen and Paul Doherty (absent presenter Sebastian Martin) from the Exploratorium A link to the powerpoint that accompanied this presentation will be linked soon. “Blinky Lights” is a nickname for a small LED light by Inova called a MicroLight. The light has three settings: bright, dim and blinking. Pressing the light once sets it to bright which is on constantly; two clicks is dim and then three clicks is blinking. The dim setting is actually oscillating on a duty cycle that blinks it back and forth very fast. You can see this by setting it to dim and…
The Fall Meeting was held October 10th, 2009 at NASA Ames. Please check the notes and summaries below for information of the day’s activities!