News
High schoolers attend Union College science workshop
Dec. 9, 2009
On Saturday, Dec. 6, Mohonase high schoolers Joshua Bradt, Cherry, Chahal, and Cory Larmour joined students from Guilderland, Voorheesville, Saratoga Springs, and North Shore school districts to attend the Union College Physical Constants Workshop. This first-ever, day-long event was planned by Union’s Department of Physics and Astronomy as a means of reaching out to local high school students and faculty.
Each
team rotated through six different, one-hour long, experimental
stations, learning about and conducting experiments to determine
things like the earth’s mass, an electron’s charge, Planck’s
constant, and the charge-to-mass ratio of the electron.
Students observed high speed alpha particles in a one million volt particle accelerator scattering off of a thin foil target. Analysis of the data determined that the target was likely aluminum with thin coatings of silver and gold.
Another station gave students the opportunity to actually control a scanning electron microscope. Following a brief introduction and demonstration, Josh, Cory, and Cherry were adeptly operating the machine to discover minute treasures, such as microscopic hidden images.
The experiences were designed to be very hands-on, with students learning by doing rather than observing. Union College faculty, assisted by Union students, set up and conducted the stations. The event was informal, with faculty answering questions about their personal backgrounds, college teaching and areas of interest. The professors provided relevant insight into the college application process, including high school experiences being sought by college admission officers.
Each student was given a Union College physics department T-shirt and a notebook containing information and data from each station. Breakfast and lunch provided an opportunity for students and staff from all five schools to mingle and share experiences.
