W&M Physics at Y.E.S. Science Night
在约克镇小学科学之夜，在物理学生协会的帮助下，由Irina Novikova教授和Wouter Deconinck教授组织的各种互动演示给参观者留下了深刻的印象和惊喜。 The night began with a hunt through Small Hall for a proper receptacle for the bubble solution and loading up cars with the necessary equipment for the event. Armed with a conveniently borrowed recycling bin along with the apparatuses for the other five stations, two professors and six students headed out for the science magnet school Yorktown Elementary. It was the third year that the W&M Physics Department volunteered at it.
欧
Not only did the demos interest visitors, but they inspired scientific thought in them as well. At my station making thin film bookmarks, for example, I received questions such as, “What would happen if you used a colored nail polish instead of clear?” or “How would this work with white paper instead of black?” Some visitors asked to change the demonstration a bit, using bits of white paper or their own fingers to catch the thin film and see how that changed the experiment.
This enthusiasm extended to all the stations. “All the kids were really excited about playing with the bubbles. Some of them kept coming back!” sophomore Elana Urbach commented. “It’s nice because it’s really easy to play with bubbles at home, too, so it’s an experiment they can keep coming back to.”
In fact, many stations utilized at-home items that would be easy to replicate at home, which might lead to some further investigation from the visitors. The discharge lamp station, run by Prof. Wouter Deconinck, sent kids home with diffraction glasses so they could continue to explore what makes up light, and both thin film stations used common, every-day items. Even the Van der Graff and microwave stations explored an every-day scientific phenomenon that kids could link directly to their personal experience, making the stations that much more interesting to a developing scientific mind.
