Hello Everyone,

Today, Prof. Laycock, Andy, and myself ventured back to Bresnahan Elementary School in Newburyport to lead outreach activities in the classes of Mrs. Westgate and Mrs. Hoiseth. In addition to the three of us, recent UML grad Kate Oram took time out of her busy schedule to join us for our activities and to talk to the students of both classes about all the fascinating work she is doing in optical engineering. For the activities, in Mrs. Westgate’s class, we had the students create a scale model of the solar system. They had to pick out which balls represented which planet, order themselves based on which planet they were holding, and then space themselves out. Throughout we got the opportunity to discuss why it is important to make models in science and how the scientific method is present even in something like a scale activity. From there, we had students use a giant thermometer to figure out the temperature of the planets and how they compare to every day objects like ice and soup. With Mrs. Hoiseth’s class, we talked about magnetism. Students saw a demo with iron filings and magnets that showed the effects of magnetism on the filings. From there, students made compasses their own. The compasses were made out of cork and a pin that the students magnetized themselves. The cork was then floated in water to show how it could be used as a compass. To wrap up our activity on magnetism, students got the opportunity to look through a solar telescope to see the effects that a magnetic field can have. We would like to thank Mrs. Westgate and Mrs. Hoiseth for allowing us to lead our activities with their classes and Kate for coming with us to share her knowledge and expertise with the students. Pictures to come soon!

Until next time,

Tom

Hello Everyone,

On March 10, Andy and I had the pleasure of assisting Mr. Johnny Gelsomini’s Astronomy Class with a telescope making activity. The activity had the students measure the focal length of each lens needed for the telescope, the objective lens and the eyepiece. From there the students were tasked with an engineering challenge where they worked in groups to make a telescope using two cardboard tubes of different sizes, a sheet of foam-like material, the two lenses, extra cardboard, caps for the cardboard tubes, scissors, and tape. While each group had the same basic shape for the telescope, they all had slightly different methods of securing the lenses in place. Some used extra cardboard and tape while others used the caps for the cardboard tubes and everything in between. Once students got the chance to look around with their telescopes, we talked about why the images seen were upside-down and how magnified the objects being seen were. We were so impressed with the problem-solving skills that the students were displaying while constructing their telescopes and the knowledge that they already had about telescopes and light. We would like to thank Mr. Gelsomini for allowing us to come in and his students for being amazing. We look are looking forward to helping out again soon!

Tom

Hello Everyone,

Today, Prof. Silas Laycock, Andy, and I had the pleasure of travelling to Bresnahan Elementary School in Newburyport for an outreach activity with Mrs. Hoiseth’s 2nd grade classroom. Our morning with the class consisted of two main activities: making a scale model of our solar system and creating a thermometer with the temperatures of the planets. For the solar system, the students had to try and figure out what object was representing which planet and then order and space out themselves before learning the actual distances of the planets. The thermometer activity had students use their prior knowledge about everyday objects, such as soup and ice, and the solar system to order the planets by temperature on our giant thermometers. To demonstrate why Venus gets hotter than Mercury, we illustrated the greenhouse effect with a water bottle and alka-seltzer tablets under a heat lamp. During our few down moments (snack time), we even got the opportunity to talk about what it might smell like on other planets. We were so impressed with how smart the kids were and how much they had learned in about space in the hour and a half that we were there. We would like to thank the school and Mrs. Hoiseth for everything and are looking forward to helping in the future.

More updates to come,

Tom