It’s been a pretty cool few days

After a number of months  of trying (off and on, mind), I finally managed to get the url for the blog changed to thinkforyourself.ie
Thanks to my colleagues at St. Columba’s College English department for the idea.

After putting in quite a bit of work into Young Scientist Projects for the first time this year, we have had four out of the eight submitted accepted for presentation next January. Busy times ahead. They’re almost all in Second Year, and when we spend time on it in class, those not preparing for the Young Scientist Exhibition will be preparing for the Scifest equivalent next May.

Then I got a phonecall on Saturday from Aoife O’Donoghue, who is the Tyndall Outreach Officer, to inform me that one of my leaving cert students won first prize in the senior category of Science Snaps, their Science Photography competition (Shhh . . . Shane doesn’t know yet).
Not that I that anything to do with it mind; I tried to promote an internal Science-Photo competition at the beginning of the year and had the grand total of three entries. So at least this should help in promoting it if it runs again next year. And Mary Mulvihill over at Science@Culture might even be impressed with the quality of the entries.

And then I came across this on Youtube, and I don’t know why but I cried. My wife thinks it might have been the beautiful music in the background.

Play the survival game: a cool resource for teaching Evolution

darwin-game

The Science Channel have produced a wonderful learning resource on evolution here. I tried it with my Transition Year class and they found it addictive, as did my Leaving Cert Physics class when they walked in and saw it on the screen.  For what is arguably the greatest idea mankind has ever come up with, there appears to be remarkably few quality resources available online.

The Welcome Trust have produced some text-based resources here (top right of page), which isn’t quite the same thing.
Is it because we as teachers are not pushing to have it taught at all levels in schools that there are so few resources out there?
Or are there resources online that I just don’t know about?

Unusual resource for explaining Joule’s Law

An offshoot of Joules’ Law is that when transmitting electrical power, the current is kept as low as  possible in order to reduce energy losses associated with heat of the electrical cables. Because the power being transferred is the product of the voltage and the current, we can still get the same power transferred if we halve the current and double the voltage, or; make the current very, very small and make the voltage very, very big.

So power -lines transmit power at a voltage of up to 400,000 volts. Then, as the power gets closer to the home, the voltage is reduced in stages, and correspondingly the current gets increased. This occurs in appiances called transformers.

I came across a lovely interactive explanation of this when in honeymoon in Hong Kong.
I couldn’t resist.

Another Physics teacher shares resources on Youtube

Tom Healy teaches Physics in Cabinteely Community School and for quite a while now has been uploading revision videos on Leaving Cert Physics to youtube. He has almost 50 up there by now and has divided them into Mandatory and Non-mandatory experiments.

A wonderful way to revise, but also a wonderful resource for any new teachers.
Why couldn’t this have been available when I was starting out?

Mr Devitt teaches us about Light

Jerome Devitt (History Teacher) runs a transition-year module on Light and Sound for theatres, and kindly agreed to allow us in to watch him teach one of his lessons.

Not all of it comes out great on video, but it should still prove very usefull for Senior Phyics classes.

If you would like to play with a virtual version of this, where you can control the postion and intensity of the lights, click here.

Thanks Jerome

Support for physics teachers: The Institute of Physics

The single greatest resource I have access to in my profession is the Institute of Physics’ (IOP) discussion forum. Any query I have ever had has been satisfactorily answered. It works because it has a large critical mass, although like most forums most members are happy to just read, which is fine too. I imagine this is partly due to lack of confidence, which would also explain why similar forums here are not as successful.

Nevertheless, if you reading this as a physics teacher you could do a lot worse than join the PTNC Phyics discussion forum.

While you’re at it why not join their Schools & Colleges Affiliation Scheme? You get a monthly magazine/journal (called Physics World) which keeps you up to date with latest developments in physics, and it’s pitched at just the right level for teachers. There’s also their Physics Education monthly journal, and they offer lots of resources like posters and DVDs, which make a very pleasant surprise when they arrive in the staffroom letterbasket.

Check out their schools and colleges page for an overview of what’s on offer, and make sure you watch the animations on the radioactivity page.

Money well spent I’d say myself.

The old bed of nails

We have Open Day coming up and I was considering using the bed of nails. It’s certainly impressive, but I think we may not have enough room or time on the day.

It’s pretty cool though. And the nice thing about it is that the more nails you have on it per unit area, the more dangerous it looks but the safer it actually is (from Pressure = Force / Area).

Then all you need to add is another bed on top, and on top of this a cavity block.

Then smash the block with a sledge-hammer (this to demonstrate the property of inertia).

Then add more beds!