The new physics lab in action


The physics equipment store...


Investigative group work

Getting hold of decent chocolate here can be problematic. It’s strange but true that chocolate made in Africa is usually poor quality. Fortunately we can get imported stuff although even that can be hit and miss. Snickers is best, Bounty and Twix are OK, Mars Bars leave an unpleasant aftertaste and Kit Kat is inedible. We’ve finished today at college with a Twix followed by a Bounty between us, the job of the Twix being to provide an instant energy hit and the Bounty chaser to cancel the weird aftertaste.

The now daily diet of lesson observations was spiced up a bit by observing a practical physics lesson in the new lab. The summer programme students do four practical physics sessions and today, the third, was on Hooke’s Law. The task was simple (find the spring constant of two springs connected in series) but the execution was messy. The students have very little practical lab experience, and despite their enthusiasm they went about gathering data while making lots of basic errors. Frustratingly, their teacher lacks experience of how to work with the students on developing their practical skills. The approach here seems to be to assess the students on their final written report of the experiment, instead of intervening and working with the students on their skills during the practical. The physics technician, who has very little experience, spent most of his time helping the students to take the measurements while the teacher passively observed from a distance. This appears to be normal practice during science practical work and will be worth exploring.