Alom and I are filming again this week so things are likely to be a bit slow here, but the above caught my eye. I have to stare at the circuit diagram for longer than I’d care to admit to remember work out what’s going on in a rectifier, but this is a neat visualisation and sanity check.
Spotted on the ever-lovely PTNC mailing list, from Will Hall.
Alom and I are filming at the moment, hence things being rather quiet around here. However, the above caught my eye. This demo is typically done with a long length of copper pipe, and the magnet takes many seconds to fall through. It’s effective on a stage.
The tall narrow pipe, however, is precisely the wrong shape to film, and on video the demo doesn’t work so well. This shorter length of fatter pipe, with an appropriate magnet, has more impact on camera.
Same principle, same demo… but different treatments for different audience contexts. So, lessons for us all:
That separation of ‘content’ and ‘treatment’ is, for me, an absolutely key concept.
Tip of the hat to my dad for sending this in.
UCL chemist and demonstrator extraordinaire Andrea Sella, on his blog:
the wearing of gloves in the lab may, counter-intuitively, put us, our students, and our fellow lab workers at greater risk than riding their flasks bearback.
Do read the rest of his post, and likely the rest of his blog too.
I should talk to CLEAPSS about this sometime – Andrea’s comments on gloves make a lot of sense to me, but I’ve no idea what the standing advice for schools is. Ah, the simple life of not actually being a teacher.
We can talk about maths here, right? Well hey, I guess it’s me that makes the rules, so: yes, we can talk about maths here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeVysczKR_k
You’ll have to crank up the volume, but it’s worth it: Katie Steckles‘ description of group theory and Rubik’s Cubes is as good as any I’ve seen. Better, in fact, in that for the first time in 30 years of cubing I think I understood it this time.
…and believing you understand something is the same as understanding it, yes? Oh no, wait: this site draws the line at philosophy. Drat.
With patience and a bit of wiggling, you can detect the magnet from nearly nearly three metres away. Which is astonishingly sensitive for a cake stand.
TV presenter & props chap Marty Jopson built a magnetometer using a laser pointer, a fridge magnet, and an Ikea cake stand. It was used a few weeks ago on BBC Stargazing Live.
(via Marty on Twitter).
Over the last few years, making all these demo films, I’ve found myself thrust back into the world of school education. It’s a bit of a shock. I’m young enough to have taken GCSEs myself, but old enough to have been in the first year to sit them. Much has changed.
One thing I find slightly baffling is the obsession with extremely precise terminology. There’s a natural inclination to precision in the sciences, but some of what I’ve seen veers towards the obsessive. It’s not precise, it’s pedantic. And it’s nerve-wracking. I can’t write a sentence of script without the fear of somehow mis-stepping, of treading on some unseen toes and bringing down some unrelenting diatribe about how you can’t use that specific word there, only this one.
Now, I’m old enough and weary enough to battle through such pressures. There are also times when I can dimly recall enough of the physics I once did to be reasonably certain that not all of the advice I receive is… umm… correct.
But if I find myself staring at an explanation with that stomach-knotting dread of you’re doing it wrong, how is a twelve year-old supposed to cope? Respect due, we’re raising them tough these days.
My assumption is that pedantry has crept in because it’s quicker and easier to assess whether the student can recite rote-learned material accurately than it is to judge their understanding against the examiner’s (also-flawed/incomplete?) knowledge.
But that really is an assumption. So, some questions:
http://vimeo.com/80795157
I’m a bit of a fan of the Cambridge Science Centre, and of the people behind it. A year ago I trekked down from Newcastle to help them fix things up just before they opened. So by ‘fan’ I mean ‘groupie.’
Hence, my favourite parts of this film are Chris Lennard saying ‘Heath-Robinson‘ rather than ‘Rube Goldberg‘ (quite right too), and the brief glimpse at the end of the inimitable Dave Ansell leaning in to blow out a candle. Lovely people all.
My biggest problem with Heath Robinson machines is that they’re impossible to photograph unless they’re designed specifically for the camera. And the only people to have done that, really, are the folks behind the magnificent Japanese children’s series Pitagora Suichi, whose mechanisms are unbelievably smart:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSf-3gwHPZA
(check this playlist for a bunch more from the same source.)
You need more π? We got more π: Mile of π download, at Think Maths. A printable version of everyone’s favourite transcendental number, ideal for classroom or general decorative use.
Ah, the joy of modern media. You can publish a film one week, and the following week you see a tweet from a teacher who’s incorporated ideas from it into their lesson. Even better: they post a photo of their students exploring ideas around air pressure via the approach in the film.
Photo above from Tom Sherrington, @headguruteacher. Huge thanks for allowing us to repost, Tom – it’s a delight to see this stuff getting used.
Monday’s posting of the visking tubing film was the last of the demo videos we made to support Get Set Demonstrate. The culmination of the project comes during National Science & Engineering Week: on 20th March 2014, The British Science Association are coordinating a national Demo Day.
Teachers are invited to join in simply by performing a demonstration to their classes on the day. Sign up at the BSA’s site to show your intention: take the pledge! There are equipment discounts from Timstar up for grabs, too.
We’re not quite done with our contribution, however. Our long-heralded Demo documentary will hit the web in early March.
