A MAGAZINE FOR SECOND LEVEL TEACHERS OF ... Magazine Issue...The review of Biology, Chemistry and Physics is greatly influenced by the five key skills that are central to teaching

PHYSICAL SCIENCESPHYSICAL SCIENCES

Supported by

Also in this issue:

• Sustainable Energy

• Space Camp

• Developing a Formative Classroom

• Industry Rewards

• Students’ Attitudes to Science

• Do You Suffer From Textbook Addiction?

• Changing a Whiteboard into an interactive one using a Wii remoteplus lots more!

A MAGAZINE FOR SECOND LEVEL TEACHERS OF PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY September 2008 Issue 10

P H Y S I C A L S C I E N C E S M A G A Z I N E

Dear Colleagues,We hope you enjoyed thesummer break and that you arelooking forward to the teachingyear ahead.

This issue of the PhysicalSciences contains updates onsupport courses available,articles from colleagues sharingtheir classroom experiences,feature articles and lots more.

We thank all who contributedarticles for this issue and inviteyou to submit comments on ourwebsite forum and let us knowwhat you think. We would alsolike to invite you to submit anarticle to the Chemistry orPhysics Co-ordinator for thenext issue of the magazine.

We look forward to workingwith you and wish you and yourstudents every successthroughout the academic year.

Brendan Duane, Chemistry Co-ordinator SLSS Tim Regan, Physics Co-ordinator SLSS

Contents3 NCCA Course Update

Science on Stage Booklet Launch4 Physics Support January - June 20086 Chemistry Support January - June 20087 Laurel Hill 5th year Tour to Belgium8 Four Thousand Bubbles in Beijing9 Take-up of Physics in Irish 2nd Level Schools10 Gold for Irish Students11 Changing a Whiteboard into an interactive one using a Wii remote12 Wind Energy13 Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev16 How Things Work17 Frontiers of Physics 0818 Joint North – South Science Teachers’ Conference19 Interview with Michael Grehan20 Students’ Attitudes to Science23 Interesting Science Facts24 Do you suffer from textbook addiction?26 Tionscanamh Feadán Ruben27 Build your own Levitron28 Build your own Particle Accelerator29 Current Approaches To Teaching Physics In Secondary

Schools In Great Britain Feb 200830 Coláiste Muire Ballymote Visit CERN31 The construction of a Trebuchet33 Lucan Students reach finals of Planet SciCast34 McKinsey Report 200735 Industry Rewards Top Science Teachers36 More Physics for Your Euro37 Science Website Resources38 Physical Science News 200839 Chemistry Website 40 Developing a Formative Classroom42 IOP New Teacher Network Co-ordinator43 Physics Website44 Physics Support 2008 / 200946 Chemistry Support 2008 / 200948 Calendar of Events 2008 / 2009

SLSS Physics & Chemistry Support

• The magazine ‘Physical Sciences’ is circulated to all second level schools in September and January.

• A consultation service by phone, fax or email is available.

• A limited number of school visits will be provided, resources permitting.

• Regional Network Meetings to support local identified needs will be facilitated.

• Details of courses on offer are contained inside.

• The Physical Sciences website,www.slss.ie is regularly updated and contains new useful resources and news of upcoming in-service and events.

Physics Support Co-ordinatorTim Regan

[email protected]: 087 231 4090

Fax: 064 71999

Chemistry SupportCo-ordinator

Brendan [email protected] : 087 6375863

Fax: 045 442521

SLSS Science Postal AddressLimerick Education Centre

Park House, Parkway Shopping Centre,

Dublin Road, Limerick.Tel: 061 437999 Fax: 061 419907

Contact Information

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In autumn 2008, NCCA will be seeking the views of teachers, parents, students and others onall of the areas of development in senior cycle. Three science subjects, Biology, Chemistry andPhysics, accompanied by new proposals for their assessment will be among the first subjectsto appear as draft syllabuses for your consideration. Schools will be able to access all thematerials on the senior cycle website and submissions will be invited in a number of formats.

The review of Biology, Chemistry and Physics is greatly influenced by the five key skills that are central to teaching and learningacross the curriculum at senior cycle. These are information processing, being personally effective, communicating, critical andcreative thinking and working with others. The key skills set out the tools that will unlock a range of learning experiences forstudents, helping them to become more effective learners, both during their time in school and into the future and to participatefully in society, including personal and family life, the world of work and lifelong learning. The key skills will be embeddedwithin the learning outcomes and will be assessed in the context of the assessment of the learning outcomes.

A common framework has been developed for the sciences at senior cycle. Each of the syllabuses has been restructured into fourunits with no options. The syllabuses are presented as learning outcomes which are a statement of what the student should beable to do having completed a programme of study. The STS component of the syllabuses has been embedded into the learningoutcomes and some content has been removed to make way for modernisation and updating. Contemporary issues, includingthose that raise ethical questions have been included, and there are increased opportunities for the use of ICT. The scope andrange of the practical activities have been widened and each of the syllabuses will have a second, practically based assessmentcomponent.

Dr. Eilish McLoughlin, Director of CASTeL, DCU/Chairperson of Science on Stage in Ireland

The new Science on Stage 1&2 bookletwas officially launched at a receptionhosted by the Centre for theAdvancement of Science Teaching andLearning at Dublin City University on May15th by Ms. Margaret Kelly, PrincipalOfficer in the Department of Educationand Science, Mr John Lucey, Assistant Director of SecondLevel Support and Dr. Oonagh Meighan, Manager Young People’s Programme,Discover Science and Engineering.

This publication is the third in the series from the Irish Physics on Stage/Science on Stage teams and contains sciencedemonstrations and teaching ideas prepared and selected by the teams of Irish science teachers that attended theScience on Stage 1 festival in CERN, Geneva from 21-25 November 2005 and the Science on Stage 2 festival inGrenoble from 2-6 April 2007. The booklet contains 110 pages of demonstrations from across topics in Biology,Chemistry and Physics and offers classroom activities suitable for both Junior Certificate and Leaving Certificatestudents.

Copies of this booklet have been provided free to every secondary school in Ireland thanks to the dedication of theauthors: Siobhan Crowe, Noel Cunningham, Brendan Duane, Sean Fogarty, Rory Geoghegan, Alison Graham, JohnHennessy, Damienne Letmon, Rachel Linney, Brian Masterson, Eilish McLoughlin, Kevin Murphy, Joe Nugent, PaulNugent, Seamus Ó Donghaile and Tim Regan; and the generous sponsorship of the Second Level Support Service,Junior Science Support Service, Discover Science and Engineering, Institute of Physics in Ireland (IOPI) and EIROforumEuropean Science Teachers’ Initiative (ESTI). Further copies of this booklet will be available at Science on Stageworkshops held at science teacher’s conferences, e.g. ISTA Annual Conference, IOPI Frontiers of Physics teacher’sconference and through the Second Level Support Service Science courses, network meetings and workshops. Forfurther information on Science on Stage in Ireland and for electronic copies of the SOS1&2, POS3 and POS2 booklets,please visit: www.scienceonstage.ie

Booklet Launched . . .

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Modular Courses SL0721 Induction Course for Physics TeachersThe physics teachers who attended were mainly new to the profession while others were new to the revised Leaving Certificatesyllabus. Day 3 focussed on the practical physics laboratory work listed in the syllabus and was hosted in a school laboratoryoutside of school time during second term. Two difficulties were highlighted during the course.

The course introduced teachers to the structure and content of the physics syllabus, the teacher guidelines and the teachersupport starter pack. Teachers also explored effective teaching methods for communicating physics and had a hands-on experiencewith most of the experiments listed in the syllabus.

Feedback from the teachers included:‘I found carrying out the practicals and points to watch out for invaluable as I have possibly not done most since my own Leaving Cert’.,

‘I found the fact that one does all the experiments to the end and get results most helpful’,

‘I found doing the experiments using equipment different to what I did previously and the new ideas/tips about ways of doing the experiments

most helpful’

‘I found the demonstrations using very cheap equipment most helpful’

‘I am teaching physics again after a break of 13 years and this course has been great for building my confidence and inspiring me’

SL0722 Using ICT to enhance learning in the physics classroom

This course was hosted by the Donegal, Drumcondra, Cork and Kilkenny EducationCentres. The course included learning strategies using ICT tools such as PowerPoint,CD-ROMs, Internet Applets and Datalogging to engage the learner. The participantsdid action research in optional topics from their own work situations, reflected onpractice and documented the outcomes. All physics classroom resource materialsgenerated by participants during the course will be compiled and distributed to allcontributors.

Feedback from the teachers included:‘All the visual aids for my teaching will now be able to make theory classes more interesting’,

‘I found the ideas in teaching and methodology most helpful’,

‘I found the chance to talk things through with other teachers is highly beneficial’

‘Interesting and gave me some good ideas for practice’,

‘I found new ideas for using the ICT I have most helpful’,

How is this course impacting on your teaching of physics?‘Integrating ICT more’, ‘Given me confidence to use it more in the teaching of physics’,

‘Encourages further use of ICT in my classes’

SL0723 Teicneolaíocht an Eolais a úsáid chun chur le múineadh agus foghlaim na fisiceBí an cúrsa seo dírithe go speisialta ar mhúinteoirí fisice atá ag múineadh trí mhéanna Gaeilge. Cúrsa trí lá do mhúinteoirí dara leibhéil ab ea é.

Bí dhá lá den chúrsa ar siúl ar laethanta scoile agus bhí clúdach ionadaíochta ar fáilsa gnáth slí. Bhí Lá 1 agus Lá 2 ar siúl in Ionad Oideacheas na Gaillimhe arDéardaoin agus Aoine, an 25ú agus 26ú lá Méan Fhómhar, 2007. Tá acmhainní trímhéan na Gaeilge á ullumhú agus á riaradh i measc na muinteoirí seo.

‘Tá gach rud thar bharr’,

‘ Foireann fisic gaeilge a bhunú chun níos mó PowerPoints / achmhainní a chur le

fail duinn féin’,

‘ Bhain mé sult mór as na laetha seo, so buíochas mór’


Teicneolaíocht and Eolais

ICT Course, Cork.

Physics Support January - June 2008

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The Physics support programme for the school year 2007-2008 included three modular courses which focussed on theteaching of physics in the classroom, datalogging induction and physics experiment courses, a limited number of schoolvisits as well as regional support network meetings.

A consultation service by fax, phone or email was available. Further support was offered through two issues of themagazine “Physical Sciences” and the website physics.slss.ie

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SL0724 Flash Animations in Classroom PhysicsThis course was offered to physics teachers who had already completed aphysics ICT course and who were interested in exploring the added value ofusing Flash in the classroom.

Dublin West and Limerick Education Centres hosted the course whichexplored practical ideas and strategies for communicating physics anddeveloped participant experiential teaching skills. Each participantundertook an action research project and documented the outcomes. Theseprojects will be compiled and distributed to all contributors.

Feedback from the participants included: ‘Very useful and practical examples’, ‘I found the pooling of resources most useful’,

‘Hands-on approach was vital .’, ‘New physics teaching ideas were most helpful’,

‘Exactly what I required’ .

How is the course impacting on your teaching?‘I now use flash animations regularly in my teaching’,

‘Trying out new methodologies’,

‘Greater variety in my presentation-interest maintained for class duration’

’Putting it to use by updating my powerpoints’.

Datalogging Induction Three one day datalogging workshops were organised during the school year. TheAthlone, Blackrock and Limerick Education Centres hosted the events. The Blackrockcourse supported different datalogging systems and participants were invited to bringalong their own datalogging equipment.

The workshops were facilitated by colleagues who have a lot of experience in usingdatalogging in their teaching. The focus was on hands-on activities to highlight theadvantages of using datalogging in selected experiments and to give participants theconfidence needed to use their datalogging equipment.

Feedback from the participants included:‘More of the same small group – experimental’,

‘I appreciate the new ideas that have given me enthusiasm to try them out’ ‘Very useful to talk with other teachers and share their experiences

of teaching physics as I haven’t quite a lot’,

‘Excellent, informative day’

‘I am concerned that students using datalogging methods only would be at a disadvantage in the LC Exam’

Physics Network Meetings Nineteen physics network meetings were facilitated by physics local tutors during the 2007/2008 school year in thirteen differentEducation Centres. These meetings took place in teachers own time and were organised in collaboration with the local EducationCentre Directors and in cooperation with the Irish Science Teachers’ Association (ISTA) and the Institute of Physics (IOP).

The local issues supported included ‘The Virtual Physics Laboratory’,‘An Insight into LC Exams’ and a workshop which focussed onthe teaching of Particle Physics. Almost all indicated that they found the meetings very helpfuland would recommend them to colleagues.

Feedback from the participants included: ‘The course was well structured and the course content was relevant to my work’, ‘My overall impression

of the course was excellent’, ‘I feel the course content can enhance my teaching', 'I found the practical

aspect of getting to use the material most positive', ‘The link up of the virtual laboratory with real

experiments appealed most to me’,

The plan for this year is to offer the physics network support to more teachers and to broadenthe support topics on offer.

Physics Support January - June 2008

Teachers at Flash Animations course

Teachers at Datalogging Induction Day


Participant Breakdown

100Female46%

117Male54%

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SL0522 ( Modular) Induction Course for Chemistry TeachersThis course is modular and spread over three days one of which is outside of school hours. Thethree venues this year were NUI Maynooth, Limerick University and Athlone Institute ofTechnology. New teachers were introduced to the revised Chemistry syllabus and allparticipants were delighted to get direction and advice so early in their careers. They havealso benefited from hands-on practice of all the organic practicals.

These inservices are an opportunity for teachers to share their experiences in teaching amonglikeminded colleagues and many tips and useful resources were shared. New teachers also gotadvice and a chance to try out effective teaching strategies in their own classrooms. Teacherswere able to use datalogging equipment as an alternative in some experiments.‘Having been thrown in at the deep end this course was a godsend’. ‘Great to get a chance to get hands-on experience and to be aware of any

difficulties which might arise’. ‘Great tips and advice given’. ‘Very good atmosphere among teaches’

SL0719 (Modular) Using ICT in the Teaching of Chemistry (Beginners)

This elective course in ICT is proving very popular. It caters for all, from the veryinexperienced to the fairly competent.The focus of this course is to empower teachers to useICT skills in a variety of ways to explain key Chemistry concepts in their classrooms. Themaking of a PowerPoint presentation was demonstrated with emphasis on what key elementsare needed for effective presentations. Many useful Web sites were highlighted and resourceswere downloaded for immediate use in the classroom.. The feedback from the participatingteachers was very positive. All resource material generated by the participants will be burnedto a CD and distributed to each group.‘I learned how to search the net for resources’

‘Don’t need to reinvent the wheel when good PowerPoints are available online’

‘Amazing how a short animation can save hours of work’.

SL0720 (Modular) Using ICT in the Teaching of Chemistry (Advanced)This course allowed teachers explore various techniques to improve their IT skills. They learnedhow video, animation and digital media could be embedded in PowerPoint presentations. Usewas made of examination materials to assist in revision and exam preparation. Many usefulresources were produced and shared among the participants. Advanced animation wasdemonstrated and stunning visual effects were achieved using custom animation in PowerPoint. ‘Inserting Media looked very difficult at first but now it’s a piece of cake’.

‘My lessons will benefit so much from this course’

‘The use of previous exam material has helped my students’.

DataloggingIn the datalogging workshop ten experiments were laid on for teachers. The experiments werechosen so that a variety of sensors could be used. Comprehensive step by step notes wereprovided on the day and these may be downloaded on the www.slss.ie website.‘ I feel more confident using the equipment now everyone had a chance to do each experiment as there

was enough equipment for all’.

‘Will definitely take out the dataloggers in the press in the lab. Could use this with Transition Year’.

Network MeetingsThese courses are voluntary courses and take place in the teachers own time. The are organized in cooperation with EducationCentres and the local branches of the Irish Science Teachers Association (ISTA). Courses are designed to satisfy the local needs ofteachers.

UL Induction

Waterford IT Course

Advanced IT

Chemistry Support January – June 2008



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5th year Tour to Belgium This is the diary kept by fifth year students from Laurel Hill Secondary School Limerick Citywho went to the European Space Centre during their October mid-term break ’07.

Miss Crowe’s 5th Year Physics Students,Laurel Hill Secondary School FCJ, SouthCircular Road, Limerick.

For some, the four am start was a little too early, ahem!Before long we made it to Shannon and set up camp in thedepartures lounge. Our flight brought us to Charleroi inBrussels. We met Tez, who would be our guide for the week.He showed us our very cosy coach that would become oursecond home. Our first stop was Technolopolis, where wemarvelled at our immense strength when we lifted a car withour bare hands. In this museum we got to ride a bike across atightrope, drive a car simulation, lie on a bed of nails, blowgiant bubbles, and not to forget our attempt to solve the mostimpossible puzzle which unfortunately we failed miserably todo. We continued on our journey to the European spacecentre where we would be spending the week. We got to havea quick look around the centre and headed to the Val de PoixHotel for a very enjoyable dinner. We all fell asleep in thewink of an eye, as we had been awake for 18 hours. The nextmorning we were divided into our lab groups and got toexperience the thrills of being a real astronaut. Team Greywent on the rotating chair, where we got to see how anastronaut's senses adapted to outer space. Team Bourgandywent on the moonwalk chair. They got to feel what it was likewalking on the moon where it is one sixth of the gravity weexperience on earth. Next, we had mission training where welearned how a rocket is launched. We had lunch in the spacecentre before heading to Luxembourg City. We did a quiz ofLuxembourg City, however some got lost along the way but McDonald’s golden arches put them in the right direction. Wethen went to the Outlet Shopping Centre and all picked up acouple of bargains. We headed to the bowling alley wheresome people’s competitive streak came out, contradictingscores and trying to remove the opposition. We retired to thedormitories after a long day of fun.

Breakfast was served every morning in the space centre,however some people found the playground more appealing andending up getting a little wet. We had an astronomy talk, withRob, where we learned, that we in the greater scheme of thingsare merely a speck in a cloud of the unknown. We then had funon the multi axis chair. We were spun 360 degrees and told todraw squares and not to scream, quite diffcult when you areupside-down. We also learned about how life in outer spaceaffects the body of an astronaut, how they reused their urine inouter space and later drank it as water. As we’re a littleaccident-prone Ms. Crowe had to head for a routine trip to thehospital, the language barrier was difficult but the x-ray cameout okay. The rest of us headed for the theme park, where weenjoyed the rollar coasters, got our photos with Walaby, sailedon a pirate ship and ate the hot dogs. Some people went a littleover-board on the sweets. After all the activities we needed anearly night in preperation for the next day.

The next morning, we built a satellite and did differentexperiments. These experiments taught us about a vacuum andwhat it does to our bodies. We also learned about air pressure.We all took part in a real life mission. Each student played outa different part in a shuttle launch. Luckily nobody cut off theoxygen or forgot to light the rockets. After lunch in the spacecentre we made our way to the outdoor adventure centre. Wehad a great time on the ropes, some of us even made it to levelthree. But for others the height was too much so we settled forthe underground mazes, which were dark and dusty. We had abarbeque at the adventure park, which was delicious. We thenwent back to the space centre where we all packed for ourjourney home the following day.

Friday was our last day in the space centre. That morning webuilt our rockets, which we would later launch. We made ourrockets out of paper, wood, gunpowder and some colours fordecoration. We got to name our rockets after whatever wewanted. After lunch we all went out to launch our rockets. Weall waited anxiously for our rockets to fly off into the sky. Wewere so proud when they reached over 250 meters. We went tothe hall where we all got our certificates and collected ourBelgian chocolates. We said our final good byes to the spacecentre and got on the coach for our journey to the airport. Thegroup greatly enjoyed our trip to Belgium where we learnedloads about space and Luxembourg City.

We would like to thank our teachers Siobhan Crowe, MargaretPunch, Mark O’Sullivan and Sheelagh Clowry for bringing us ona very educational and enjoyable trip.

Back left to right, Michelle O’Shaughnessy, Carmel Matthews Avril Hurley and AideenMc Namara front row Rita McMorrow and Sophie Kiely.

The newspapersare full ofadmiration for theWater Cube, thespectacular AquaticCentre of theBeijing OlympicGames, and theytalk of an Irishconnection. What’sthat all about?Search the Web andyou can find out,but here is the fullstory, in a nutshell.

When the competition for the Olympic buildings was firstannounced, it was suggested that the building that was tohouse the swimming pools might somehow symbolise water. AnAustralian engineer, working for the Arup Corporation, startedto play with some ideas on his laptop.

Why not bubbles, and so why not a foam structure? The wallscould be thick slabs of a foam-like structure, and faced withtransparent plastic.

Ordinary foams have a complex random structure that hardlyappeals to an engineer. The obvious ordered arrangement ofequal-sized bubbles, published by Lord Kelvin in 1887, has a veryregimented appearance. Might there not be something betweenthese two extremes, practical and appealing to the eye?

The engineer soon found that Kelvin’s structure, which hesupposed to have the lowest possible energy, had beensupplanted in that role by the discovery

1in Dublin of a more

efficient structure, in 1993. It consists of two kinds of cells(bubbles), that fit together to fill space. This became the basisfor the design that won the competition. In addition to itsvisual appeal, those thick and empty walls offer advantages inheat conservation and sound reduction.

The transparent plastic to cover thewalls with "cushions", inside and out,is Ethylene Tetrafluoroethylene.Covering 110,000 square metres, itreduces heat loss and absorbs solarradiation. About 20 percent of thesolar energy falling on the structure istrapped, enabling heating costs to bereduced up to 30 percent and lightingcosts cut by up to 55 percent. It’s alsolightweight, durable and strong.

The Water Cube design allows air to circulate through thecushions. The air is regulated and excess heat is transferred tothe water for the swimmers below. Air is further recycled bothinside and outside the system. This keeps a tight lock on thelevel of humidity and water temperature inside the pools.


Four Thousand Bubbles in BeijingContemplating the network of steelbeams (12km in all) that makes upthe foam structure, you may betempted to ask what rules areinvolved and what furtheralternatives exist. Have a close lookat your beer or your bathwaterbefore you try to understand the advice which follows…

Joseph Plateau, a blind Belgian physicist who lived in the 19thcentury, taught us the basic rules. A foam without much liquidin it consists of bubbles that take the form of cells with curvedfaces, which are soap films. The films meet in lines(represented by those beams in Beijing) and the lines mustmeet four-at-a-time, in junctions.

So if you get some “tetrahedral bonding” units from thechemistry laboratory, you can set out to see what is possible.First try to make something that has only five-sided rings. Youwill end up looking at a “pentagonal dodecahedron”. With thefreedom to make other rings (and sufficiently flexible units)you can make many other kinds of cells. The simplest just addstwo sixfold rings at opposite sides. Now you have two cells, thetwo ingredients of the Dublin structure. But how do they fittogether?

At this stage you may be sufficiently intrigued to look in therecently published second edition of “Pursuit of PerfectPacking”, by Tomaso Aste and Denis Weaire,which recounts this and many other tales ofgeometry in nature and science. Or perhapsyou will be drawn into fascinatingexperiments on foams, which require onlyodds and ends of glassware and a bottle ofdishwashing fluid. In that case, you couldstart by consulting the websitewww.tcd.ie/physics/foams.

Just as all the excitement over the Water Cube dies down,something else will spring up in the River Liffey, alsoincorporating the Dublin structure. It is to be a 48-metre-highhuman figure, the creation of the sculptor Anthony Gormley.Its interior is filled with cells rather like those of the WaterCube. Indeed Gormley says that the design was inspired by theideal foam structure, discovered only half a mile away in TCD.

Footnote1

Two Irish scientists Denis Weaire and Robert Phelan currently holdthe world record (since 1993) for the most efficient ‘ideal’ foamstructure, one with the least possible total surface area of its cells.This was a celebrated problem Lord Kelvin posed in 1887. TheWeaire–Phelan structure is mainly made up of pentagons, with asmaller number of hexagons thrown into the mix.

2 Denis Weaire, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London,

a rare honour for an Irishman, in 1999. He was presented with theRoyal Irish Academy’s premier award, the Cunningham Medal,awarded every three years for “outstanding contribution toscholarship and the objectives of the Academy’’ in 2005.

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SummaryIn this article, we present an analysis of the main factorsinfluencing the take-up of physics at second level inIreland from the perspective of secondary schoolteachers. The analysis is based on a comprehensivesurvey of teacher opinion in Irish second-level schools,conducted in December 2004. The sample included allschools in Ireland offering the leaving certificate coursein the academic session 2004-05. The most recentinformation available to us indicates that there were 720such schools (DES, 2005). Of these schools, 565 offerphysics as a standalone subject, while 79 offer physicsand chemistry as a combined subject. The number ofcompleted questionnaires received from senior cyclephysics teachers, junior cycle science teachers andschool principals was 211, 224 and 245, respectively.

As a measure of ‘generalisability’, one or morecompleted questionnaires were received fromrespondents in a total of 305 schools, representing anoverall response rate of 42%. The fact that the sample isrepresentative of the targeted population is evidenced bythe close correspondence between the sample and thepopulation in relation to the following indicators: schoolsize, geographical (province) participation, sex categoryand, to a slightly lesser extent, school type (see Tables 1-4). Moreover, every county is represented in the sample,with Laois having the lowest participation (27%) andCarlow and Cavan the highest (64%). There is alsoexcellent balance between urban schools (51%) and ruralschools (49%).

Table 1. Percentage of schools in relation to their size (DES, 2005)

Size Population (%) Sample (%)< 50 students 1.2 1.750 – 99 students 2.8 2.6100 – 199 students 8.7 7.7200 – 299 students 15.9 11.6300 – 499 students 32.2 36.4500 + 39.2 40

Table 2. Percentage of schools in relation to province representation (DES, 2005)

Province Population (%) Sample (%)Leinster 49.5 47.5Munster 29.6 29.5Ulster 6.6 7.9Connaught 14.4 15.1

Table 3. Percentage of schools in relation to sex category (DES, 2005)

School sex category Population (%) Sample (%)Co-educational 64 60Male 15 15Female 21 25

Table 4. Percentage of schools in relation to school category (DES, 2005)

School category Population (%) Sample (%)Secondary 54.6 55.7Community/comprehensive 12.1 23.3Vocational 33.2 21

Perceived DifficultyOur survey of physics teachers and school principals hashighlighted a number of issues of concern in relation tophysics uptake. Foremost, perhaps, is their view thatstudents consider physics to be an inherently difficultsubject due to its conceptual and mathematical nature(over 50% of physics teachers attribute this perception tostudents’ lack of basic mathematical skills). Moreover,they are of the opinion that a significant percentage ofthe student cohort finds the standard of mathematicsrequired for physics to be beyond them and does notaccept that there is grade point equity across all subjects(69% of principals believe that students actually avoidphysics because of a perception that it is more difficultto achieve a high grade in physics than in other LeavingCertificate subjects).

Male SubjectTeachers also believe that students perceive physics tobe a male-dominated subject (67% of physics teachers), afactor that undoubtedly contributes to the imbalance inup-take by girls compared to boys, and that the careeropportunities associated with a physics qualification arenot widely appreciated by second-level students (50% ofphysics teachers are of this view).

Practical WorkFurthermore, most teachers consider that hands-onpractical work is seriously constrained by inadequatetechnical support (46% said they did between a half andthree-quarters, and a disappointing 27% reported thatthey did less than half of the compulsory experiments);in particular, lack of laboratory assistants/technicians isseen as a constraint (the overall dissatisfaction of bothschool principals and physics teachers with the level of

Factors Influencing The Take-Up Of Physics Within Second-Level Education In Ireland - The Teachers' PerspectiveYurgos Politis, Maureen Killeavy and Peter I. Mitchell, University College Dublin


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technical support provided is 59% and 69%, respectively)and the annual budgetary allocation to school physicslaboratories for supplies and equipment is seen asgrossly inadequate (53% of second-level schools –according to the principals – allocate €1000 per year orless for this purpose).

Teacher QualificationsThe survey also reveals that nationally the proportion ofphysics teachers who have majored in physics is about30% (here defined as having a physics content of 50% ormore in the final year of the degree programme),though a similar percentage possesses a higher degree(i.e. Masters or Ph.D.).

On the positive side, it is gratifying to note that 95% ofphysics teachers hold a teaching qualification and thatthere is relative gender balance amongst physicsteachers (41% female). It is encouraging to see that two-thirds of physics teachers hold a primary degreequalification with a significant component (defined as≥25%) of physics in the final year.

Physics SyllabusMost physics teachers are generally satisfied with thecurrent physics syllabus (68% are satisfied overall), withthe balance between theoretical and practical work(76% are satisfied overall) and with the amount ofpractical work undertaken by students (70% are satisfiedoverall). Furthermore, the physics teachers are satisfiedoverall with the teaching and learning resourcesavailable to them and their students (books, laboratoryequipment, audiovisual equipment etc.), importantexceptions being lack of technical support andinadequate provision for laboratory supplies andequipment.

Respondents were also invited to comment on theproposal by the National Competitiveness Council that asingle combined science subject be introduced for theleaving certificate in place of the separate subjects ofphysics, chemistry and biology (NCC, 2004). Both schoolprincipals and physics teachers are strongly opposed tothis suggestion, with 66% and 89% respectively beingagainst it.This article can be accessed at:http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03323310601125229

The Gold medal winning team was: Sam Duffy, Meánscoil namBráithre Críostaí, Cathair na Mart, Co. Mhaigh Eo; PatrickCarthy, Convent of Mercy, Ballymahon, Longford and DavidMulligan, Ard Scoil Chaoimhin, Inbhear Mor, Co Chill Mhantain.This team came seventh overall from the thirty-three teamsrepresenting eighteen EU Countries that participated.

The Silver medal winning team members were HannahJavanmard, Colaiste Naomh Mhuire, Clochar na Trocaire, Nas, Co.Chill Dara; Orla Carron, Loreto Secondary School, Balbriggan, CoDublin and Gearóid Wrixon, Christian Brothers College, SidneyHill, Cork City. This team came sixteenth overall.

The State Examinations Commission (SEC) provided the names ofthe high achievers in Science & Mathematics in the Junior

Certificate Examinations in 2006 & 2007. The top 200 whoqualified under the age criteria were invited to DCU to participatein a competition to select two teams to represent Ireland at EUSO2008. The top student in each subject was awarded a gold medal,the next silver and the next two bronze. The three gold and threesilver medal winners were invited to form the two teams torepresent Ireland.

Congratulations for this success must also go to Dr. OdillaFinlayson (Country Coordinator and Chemistry Mentor), Dr. Paulvan Kampen (Physics Mentor) and Jennifer Dowling (BiologyMentor). They were responsible for the selection and training ofthe teams.

Michael A. Cotter DCU, EUSO President

Gold for Irish StudentsA team of three students who represented Ireland atthe 6th European Union Science Olympiad (EUSO2008) in Nicosia, Cyprus on May 11–17 won Goldmedals and a second team won silver medals. This isthe best result for Ireland to date and the first Irish Gold medals in the six-year historyof this Olympiad. The theme of EUSO 2008 was “LIGHT”.

The gold and silver medal winning teams with their mentors.


Students in Ard Scoil Ris are learning howto use their Nintendo Wii remotes for theirscience and maths class, not just for theirgames but to turn their whiteboardsinteractive.

Stephen Campion their math and science teacherexplains, “ I came across a demo that showed how anordinary whiteboard or indeed any surface can beconverted into an interactive one simply by using acontroller from a video game console, the Nintendo Wii.The idea was developed by Johnny Lee, a researcher inCarnegie Mellon University, USA. It was pure genius. Helooked at the Wii remote and thought, “what if?!”

You can see his demo athttp://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/245

“For the price of a controller(€50) and using his software Ithought we would give it a try.The students were fascinatedby this and were very keen tosee it happen. In the end wehad quite a few Wii remotecontrollers to choose from.”

The only other piece ofhardware was an infrared pen(made from an infra red LED, simple push button and abattery holder) and a data projector. We used WindowsXP on our computer and an IR pen made by Tom Casey,another physics teacher in the school.

The Wii remote has a sophisticated infra red camera init, as well as a motion sensor. But it's the camera that isthe business end here.

First connect the Wii remote to a computer/laptopusing Bluetooth.

Next using Johnny Lees' program you match four cornersof the projected computer screen on a whiteboardsurface (or any surface) with the four corners of yourcomputer screen. You accomplish that by shining aninfra red light on the top right hand corner of thesurface the Wii remote sees that and matches it to thesame corner on your computer screen. After calibration,which takes 20 seconds or less, the IR pen can be usedlike a mouse to left click, select and grab.

Mark Pasquetti grabs and moves a circle in Geogebra using IRpen and Wii remote controller

View Johnny Lee talking about his project athttp://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/wii/“It's quite incredible, you can do handwriting on yourwhiteboard using Microsoft paint and can type using oneof the accessibility options in the accessories options toget a projected keyboard onto you screen and can typewith that” says Stephen. “We have only played with it alittle so far, but the students and teachers find it veryeasy to use. We have used it mainly whilst using theGeogebra program where it's ideal for grabbing andselecting objects and tool menus.”

Johnny himself admits it's not a complete solution to aninteractive whiteboard but it certainly gets you a goodway there

Richie Ryan makes sure he doesn't get in the way of theremote controller whilst choosing his toolbar options on

Geogebra

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Changing a Whiteboard into an interactive one

using a Wii remote


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Wind EnergySome of the earliest windmills were used in China,in 200 BC, to pump water and grind grain. The Dutch used windmills to drain marshes, lakes and even theseabed. The earliest recorded windmill in Ireland dates from 1281(Kilscanlon, Co. Wexford), and by 1840 in Ireland the sails of 250windmills turned on our hilltops. Until such time as steam powertook over, followed by electricity, the driving force of the windwas extensively harnessed to power tools.

In the 1970s during the "Arab Oil Crisis," much attention was givento wind energy and other forms of renewable energy. This hasexpanded over the years and with the Kyoto protocol on climatechange and our over-dependence on oil, wind energy has found anew impetus.

Wind energy, as a renewable energy source, can play a role inachieving national targets in relation to reductions in fossil fueldependency and green house gas emissions.

Since the first commercial wind farm in Ireland at Bellacorrick,Co. Mayo in 1992, an increasing number of projects are appearingin all regions of Ireland.

By the end of 2003 there were 31 grid connected wind farms in theRepublic of Ireland, the power output of these wind turbinestotalling 190 MW (1 megawatt = 1 thousand kilowatts) generatingenough green electricity to supply almost 125,000 homes.

Today, wind energy provides electricity to the equivalent of 40million European citizens, and wind farms in Ireland supply enoughclean green power to support over 146,000 users, equivalent tothe domestic electricity needs of County Cork.

Recent figures suggest that there are 35 on-shore and one off-shore wind energy projects in operation in the Republic of Irelandwith a total installed capacity of 230.8 Megawatts although this isincreasing all the time.

Wind Farms and PhysicsWind turbines are used to convert the wind’s kinetic energy toElectrical energy. Wind energy proposals for groupings of turbinesis known as a wind farm. Wind farms apply and generate manyprinciples of physics in their operation.

Here are a few ideas for you to discuss.• Turbines generate typically 300kW to 2500 kW of power each,

depending on size.• Transformers step up the voltage from less than 1000 volts to

values suitable for connection to the national grid.• On cold nights a resonating sound may be refracted

downwards also enhancing its noise effect in the area.• Sound engineers may use deflecting and cancelling techniques

to reduce this noise effect.• The moving blades in the sunlight act as stroboscopic mirror

reflectors.

Wind farms and the countrysideWind turbines are large and they are clearly visible at considerabledistances from the wind farm site. There are areas where windfarms are more suitably located than others. This is a seriousdebate for communities who live long term with wind farms intheir neighbourhoods.

Some of the main issues of concern are:• Visual impact• Property Devaluation• Impact on wildlife (hen harrier, red grouse etc)• Noise including low frequency resonance

While wind energy is a clean energy, the long term effects on thecountryside and local communities will need to be closelymonitored.

Changing landscape: Historic Castle showing wind turbines in thebackground

For more information visit: http://www.sei.ie

The following site gives the working parts of a turbinehttp://www.thesolarguide.com/wind-power/turbine-parts.aspx

Michael Fitzgerald, Scoil Mhuire & Íde, Newcastle West, Co Limerick

Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev 1834 - 1907


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Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev was born inTobolsk, Siberia, on February 7, 1834.The blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy wasthe youngest of 14 children (or 11 or 17,depending on the authority) born toMaria Dmitrievna Korniliev and IvanPavlovitch Mendeleev. His father wasdirector of the local gymnasium. MariaKorniliev's family settled in Tobolsk inthe early 1700's and introduced paper-

and glass-making to Siberia. Unfortunately, Ivan died whenDmitri was quite young, leaving his wife to support thelarge family. The pension for educators at that time (1000rubles) was drastically insufficient, especially for a largefamily, which meant that Maria had no other choice but tofind work. Maria's family owned a glass factory inAremziansk, and they allowed her to take over managingthe company for a modest wage from which she couldsupport the family.

From his early years, Maria began to save money for Dmitrito attend the university. He spent many hours in the glassfactory his mother operated, learning from the chemistsabout the concepts behind glass making and from the glassblowers about the art of making glass. Another influence inDmitri's life was his sister Olga's husband, Bessargin. Afterbeing banished to Siberia for his political beliefs as aRussian Decembrist, Bessargin occupied himself teachingDmitri the science of the day. Mendeleev's early years wereguided by these people, and he was thus raised with threekey thoughts:

"Everything in the world is science," from Bessargin"Everything in the world is art," from Timofei the glass blower."Everything in the world is love," from Maria his mother.

As he grew older, it becameapparent that he hadexceptional comprehension ofcomplex topics. At the age of14, he was attending theGymnasium in Tobolsk and hismother was continuing to planfor his future. In that year,

however, a second major family tragedy occurred; the glassfactory burned to the ground. The family was devastated;there was no money to rebuild and the only money they hadwas the money saved for Dmitri to go to the university.Maria was not about to give up her dreams for her son. Sheknew at this point that Dmitri's only hope to go on to schoolwas to win a scholarship. So in his final years at thegymnasium, Maria pushed Dmitri to improve his grades andprepare for entrance exams. Mendeleev passed hisgymnasium exams and prepared to enter the university.

In 1849, with nothing left for the family at Aremziansk,Maria loaded up the family's belongings and headed forMoscow. At this point the family included Maria, Dmitri, andElizabeth (Dmitri's older sister). In Moscow, they entered aclimate of considerable political unrest, which made theuniversity reluctant to admit anyone from outside ofMoscow. Mendeleev was rejected. Maria did not give up,however, and the family headed for St. Petersburg. Again,they encountered similar turmoil but this time they found afriend of Ivan's working at the Pedagogical Institute, hisfather's school. With a little persuasion, Dmitri was allowedto take the entrance exams, which he passed, not withhonors but well enough to be admitted to the scienceteacher training program on a full scholarship. He enteredthe university in the fall of 1850.

Maria died shortly after Dmitri's acceptance at St.Petersburg, followed a few short months later by Elizabeth;both died from tuberculosis. Mendeleev was left alone toface his work at the university, but was to later eulogize hismother in his book on Solutions:

This investigation is dedicated to the memory of amother by her youngest offspring. Conducting a factoryshe could educate him only by her own work. Sheinstructed by example, corrected with love, and inorder to devote him to science she left Siberia withhim, spending thus her last resources and strength.

When dying she said, 'Refrain from illusions, insist on workand not on words. Patiently search divine and scientifictruth.' She understood how often dialectical methodsdeceive, how much there is still to be learned, and how,with the aid of science without violence, with love butfirmness, all superstition, untruth and error are removed,bringing in their stead the safety of undiscovered truth,freedom for further development, general welfare, andinward happiness. Dmitri Mendeleev regards as sacred amother's dying words.

Dmitri fell right into his work at St. Petersburg. His studiesprogressed rapidly until his third year. At that point he wasstruck with an illness that caused him to be bedridden forthe next year. Mendeleev graduated on time and wasawarded the medal of excellence for being first in his class. Dmitri's illness did not improve. His doctor suggested thathe had tuberculosis and that, at most, he had two years tolive providing he moved to a more suitable climate.Mendeleev already had his life's ambitions in mind and,hoping to extend his life as long as possible, he moved toSimferopol in the Crimean Peninsula near the Black Sea in1855 as chief science master of the gymnasium. He was 21years old. He progressively regained his strength to thepoint where the doctors found no sign of tuberculosis in hissystem.

In 1859, he was assigned by the Minister of Public


Instruction to go abroad to study and develop scientific andtechnological innovations. Between 1859 and 1861 hestudied the densities of gases with Regnault in Paris and theworkings of the spectroscope with Kirchoff in Heidelberg. In1860 at the Chemical Congress at Karlsruhe, Mendeleev hadthe opportunity to hear Cannizzaro discuss his work onatomic weights.

Following his trip abroad, the Russian chemist returned tohis homeland where he settled down to a life of teachingand research in St. Petersburg. In 1863 he was namedProfessor of Chemistry at the Technological Institute and, in1866, he became Professor of Chemistry at the Universityand was made Doctor of Science for his dissertation "On theCombinations of Water with Alcohol".

Mendeleev not only taught in the university classrooms butanywhere he travelled. Many excerpts discuss his journeysby train where he would travel third class with themouzhiks (peasants). It was on those journeys that he wouldshare his findings about agriculture with the peasants overa cup of tea. The admiration that Mendeleev had for thepeople of Russia was reciprocated by the people. On thetrains the mouzhiks would all gather round to see and talkwith the man. The university students also adored him.Crowds of students would fill lecture halls to hear himspeak of chemistry.

For Mendeleev, science was always the most importantsubject, but in that time period of unrest, just as today,science could be expanded to the realms of politics andsocial inequality. Mendeleev was not afraid to express hisviews on these topics:

There exists everywhere a medium in things,determined by equilibrium. The Russian proverb says,'Too much salt or too little salt is alike an evil.' It is thesame in political and social relations... It is thefunction of science to discover the existence of ageneral reign of order in nature and to find the causesgoverning this order. And this refers in equal measureto the relations of man - social and political - and tothe entire universe as a whole.

D.Mendelyev at the head of the State Examination Board

These profound thoughts of order led him to the discoveryof the periodic law, among other things, but also led to his

resignation from the University on August 17, 1890.Throughout his life he witnessed a country repressed and inturmoil. His resignation from the university came as theresult of carrying a student petition to the Minister ofEducation. The Minister refused to acknowledge therequests, stating that Mendeleev should keep to teachingand not involve himself with students and politics.Mendeleev's final lecture at the University of St. Petersburgwas broken up by police who feared that he might lead thestudents in an uprising.

Dmitri's personal life also appears to have been in turmoilfor many years. In 1863, with the heavy influence of hissister Olga, Dmitri married Feozva Nikitchna Lascheva.They had two children, a boy named Volodya, and adaughter named Olga. Mendeleev never really loved Feozvaand actually spent little time with her. One story suggeststhat, at one point in their life together, Feozva askedMendeleev if he was married to her or to science; hisresponse was that he was married to both unless that wasbigamy, in which case he was married to science. In January1882, he divorced Feozva so he could marry his niece's bestfriend, Anna Ivanova Popova. According to the OrthodoxChurch, Mendeleev was officially a bigamist; however, hewas so famous in Russia that the Czar said "Mendeleev hastwo wives, yes, but I have only one Mendeleev". Anna wasconsiderably younger than Dmitri but the two loved eachother very much and were together until his death. Theyhad four children: Liubov, Ivan, and twins Vassili and Maria.Anna also had considerable influence over Mendeleev'sviews on art, and he was elected to the Academy of Arts forboth his insightful criticism and his painting.

As he grew older it also became apparent that personalappearance became less and less significant to him. Manystories abound relating to the idea that in his later years,Dmitri would only cut his hair and beard once a year. Hewould not even cut it by request of the tsar. One observerstated, "Every hair acted separate from the others." Itbecomes apparent that, in most respects, work came firstfor Dmitri Mendeleev.

From his first publication in 1854 entitled "ChemicalAnalysis of a Sample from Finland" to his final works in 1906such as "A Project for a School for Teachers" and "TowardKnowledge of Russia", Mendeleev's transcripts revealing hisresearch findings and beliefs number well over 250. Hismost famous publications include Organic Chemistry, whichwas published in 1861 when he was 27 years old. This bookwon the Domidov Prize and put Mendeleev on the forefrontof Russian chemical education. The first edition ofPrinciples of Chemistry was printed in 1868. Both of thesebooks are classroom texts. Again, Mendeleev never lostsight of the importance of education.

Besides his work on general chemical concepts as discussedearlier, Mendeleev spent much of his time working toimprove technological advances of Russia. Many of hisresearch findings dealt with agricultural chemistry, oil

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refining, and mineral recovery. Dmitri was also one of thefounding members of the Russian Chemical Society in 1868,and helped open the lines of communication betweenscientists in Europe and the United States.

Mendeleev also pursued studies on the properties andbehavior of gases at high and low pressures, which led to hisdevelopment of a very accurate differential barometer andfurther studies in meteorology. He also became interestedin balloons, which led to a rather perilous adventure in1887. In order to observe the solar eclipse above Klin, hemade a solo ascent, without any prior experience; while hisfamily was rather concerned, he paid no attention tocontrolling the balloon until after he had completed hisobservations, at which time he figured out how to land hisconveyance.

His greatestaccomplishment,however, was thestating of thePeriodic Law andthe developmentof the PeriodicTable. From earlyin his career, hefelt that therewas some type oforder to theelements, and hespent more than thirteen years of his life collecting dataand assembling the concept, initially with the idea ofresolving some of the chaos in the field for his students.Mendeleev was one of the first modern-day scientists inthat he did not rely solely on his own work but rather wasin correspondence with scientists around the world in orderto receive data that they had collected. He then used theirdata along with his own data to arrange the elementsaccording to their properties.

No law of nature, however general , has been establishedall at once; its recognition has always been preceded bymany presentiments. The establishment of a law,moreover, does not take place when the first thought of ittakes form, or even when its significance is recognised, butonly when it has been confirmed by the results of theexperiment. The man of science must consider theseresults as the only proof of the correctness of hisconjectures and opinions.

In 1866, Newlands published a relationship of the elementsentitled the "Law of Octaves". Mendeleev's ideas weresimilar to those of Newlands but Dmitri had more data andfelt that Newlands had not gone far enough in his research.By 1869, the Russian chemist had assembled detaileddescriptions of more than 60 elements and, on March 6,1869 a formal presentation was made to the RussianChemical Society entitled "The Dependence Between theProperties of the Atomic Weights of the Elements."

Unfortunately, Mendeleev was ill and the presentation wasgiven by his colleague Professor Menshutken. There wereeight points to his presentation: 1. The elements, if arranged according to their atomic

weights, exhibit an apparent periodicity of properties. 2. Elements which are similar as regards their chemical

properties have atomic weights which are either of nearly the same value (eg. Pt, Ir, Os) or which increase regularly (eg. K, Ru, Cs).

3. The arrangement of the elements, or of groups of elements in the order of their atomic weights, corresponds to their so-called valencies, as well as, to some extent, to their distinctive chemical properties; asis apparent among other series in that of Li, Be, Ba, C, N, O, and Sn.

4. The elements which are the most widely diffused have small atomic weights.

5. The magnitude of the atomic weight determines the character of the element, just as the magnitude of the molecule determines the character of a compound body.

6. We must expect the discovery of many as yet unknown elements-for example, elements analogous to aluminumand silicon- whose atomic weight would be between 65 and 75.

7. The atomic weight of an element may sometimes be amended by a knowledge of those of its contiguous elements. Thus the atomic weight of tellurium must lie between 123 and 126, and cannot be 128.

8. Certain characteristic properties of elements can be foretold from their atomic weights.

On November 29, 1870,Mendeleev took hisconcept even further bystating that it was possibleto predict the propertiesof undiscovered elements.He then proceeded tomake predictions for threenew elements (eka-aluminum, eka-boron andeka-silicon) and suggestedseveral properties of each,including density, radii, and combining ratios with oxygen,among others. The science world was perplexed, and manyscoffed at Mendeleev's predictions. It was not untilNovember, 1875, when the Frenchman Lecoq deBoisbaudran discovered one of the predicted elements(eka-aluminum) which he named Gallium, that Dmitri'sideas were taken seriously. The other two elements werediscovered later and their properties were found to beremarkably similar to those predicted by Mendeleev. Thesediscoveries, verifying his predictions and substantiating hislaw, took him to the top of the science world. He was 35years old when the initial paper was presented.

Throughout the remainder of his life, Dmitri Mendeleevreceived numerous awards from various organizationsincluding the Davy Medal from the Royal Society of Englandin 1882, the Copley Medal, the Society's highest award, in

Mendeleev’s periodic Table


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1905, and honorary degrees from universities around theworld. Following his resignation from the University of St.Petersburg, the Russian government in 1893 appointed himDirector of the Bureau of Weights and Measures. This wasbelieved to have been done to keep down publicdisapproval of the government. Mendeleev is also creditedfor bringing the metric system to Russia.

Mendeleev continued to be a popular social figure until hisdeath. In his last lecture at the University of St. PetersburgMendeleev said: I have achieved an inner freedom. There is nothing inthis world that I fear to say. No one nor anything cansilence me. This is a good feeling. This is the feeling ofa man. I want you to have this feeling too - it is mymoral responsibility to help you achieve this innerfreedom. I am an evolutionist of a peaceable type.Proceed in a logical and systematic manner.

Dmitri Mendeleev was a man who rose out of the crowd tolead his people into the future. The motto of Mendeleev'slife was work, which he stated as: Work, look for peace and calm in work: you will find itnowhere else. Pleasures flit by - they are only foryourself; work leaves a mark of long-lasting joy, work isfor others.

On January 20, 1907 at the age of 73, while listening to areading of Jules Verne's Journey to the North Pole,Mendeleev floated away, peacefully, for the last time. Inhonour of this great Russian scientist element 101 Md(Mendelevium) was named after him.

Mendeleev and Vodka In 1894, after centuries of unregulated production, DimitryMendeleev, Professor of Chemistry at St. PetersburgUniversity and creator of the Periodic Table of Elements,established the absolute standard for vodka distillation. Forthe first time in history the Russian government decides toput vodka on a scientific footing. It commissions DmitriMendeleev, Professor of Chemistry at St. PetersburgUniversity and founder of the Periodic Table of Elements, toconduct revolutionary research into the correlationbetween alcohol and water present in vodka. He foundthat, from the point of view of its organic assimilation, thefinest strength of vodka to be 40% by volume, or 800 proof.Mendeleev's recipe is adopted by the government as theabsolute standard for Russian vodka. Mendeleev's perfectbalance of 40% alcohol by volume gave Russian vodka aprecise formula for what had been, until then, a processcloser to alchemy than chemistry.

How Things WorkMy electric toothbrush charges up bysitting in its base unit. There is no metal-to-metal contact—only plastic-to-plastic. Since the plastic is non-conductive, how does it charge?

When your toothbrush is in its holder, components hidden inside the two objects form a complete transformer—adevice that transfers electric power from one circuit to another via electric and magnetic fields alone. As long asthe holder is plugged in, power flows through this transformer from holder to toothbrush, even though there are noelectric contacts between the two objects. The absence of exposed wires isn't just a convenience, it's also a nicesafety feature in an appliance that spends half its time dripping wet.

To understand the transformer, let's look at what's inside the holder and the toothbrush. Each of these devicescontains a coil of wire. When an alternating current from the power company passes through the holder's coil, thatcoil becomes magnetic—it is surrounded by a magnetic field. Since the power company supplies alternating current,the current in the holder coil reverses directions many times a second and the coil's magnetic field reverses as well.

As British physicist Michael Faraday and American physicist Joseph Henry both discovered in 1831, a magnetic fieldthat changes with time in this manner is accompanied by an electric field—a structure in space that pushes onelectric charges. The electric field produced by the holder propels charges through the coil of wire inside thetoothbrush and gives those charges the energy they need to operate the toothbrush. Because the holder coil'selectric field reverses with each reversal of the power line, the current it pushes through the toothbrush's coil isalso alternating. The toothbrush converts this alternating current to direct current with the help of semiconductordevices, making it suitable for charging the toothbrush's batteries.

For more articles on how things work visit http://howthingswork.virginia.edu/

Details will be sent to all Post-Primary schools in advance of the conference.

Contact IoP Network Coordinator: Paul Nugent [email protected]

www.ucd.ie/physics/preston/outreach_frontiersofphysics.html


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Enhance your teaching . . .Do you wish to enhance your teaching and learning skills?Do you wish to find out about the added value ICT can contribute toclassroom teaching?Would you like to explore different teaching and learning styles withcolleagues?

The SLSS Chemistry and Physics courses on offer can assist you. See pages 44 - 47.

Teachers of Physics Annual ConferenceOrganised by

The Institute of Physics in Ireland Education Group

UCD School of Physics

A day of lectures, demonstrations, and workshopsfor Post-Primary teachers of physics

Saturday, 27th September 2008

Science Centre UCD Belfield Dublin 4

FRONTIERS OFPHYSICS OBJECTIVES

• To inform teachers of the exciting and innovative work at the Frontiers of Physics thatis being carried out in Ireland

• To provide teachers with examples of simple and inexpensive physics demonstrations

• To inform teachers of the latest developments and resources available in physics teaching.

The assistance of the SecondLevel Support Service (SLSS)

with this conference isgreatly appreciated

Frontiers of Physics 08


The Irish Science Teachers’ Association and The Association forScience Education, Northern Ireland came together to jointly hosttheir annual and biennial conferences in Letterkenny Co. Donegalfrom the 11th to 13th April last. The theme for the event was“Sustaining Science” with Letterkenny Institute of Technology asthe host venue and the Mount Errigal Hotel as the conference hotel.

Registration Desk - Frank Dooley - Principal Finn Valley V. S. Maura Mc GinleyMoville Community College and Rachael Mc Daid Scoil Mhuire, Buncrana

The proceedings commenced on Friday morning with talks,lectures and workshops mainly (but not exclusively) with aNorthern Irish focus. The official opening by Ms. Jean Crossan,Mayor of Letterkenny took place at 7pm in the Mount ErrigalHotel. This was followed by addresses from the Chairpersons ofthe ASE and the ISTA Ms. Caroline Greer and Mr. SeamusO’Donghaile, respectively and Mr. Paul Hannigan, President ofLYIT. This year, the keynote address was given by Professor FrankGannon, Director General of Science Foundation Ireland.

The weekend provided an opportunity for primary, second-levelteachers and technicians to meet, discover and discuss the latestdevelopments in science education. The organising committeesourced speakers from Ireland, both North and South, as well asEngland and Scotland, to cover a range of science education andtopical scientific issues. 35 different exhibitors attended, includingmany companies that are at the cutting edge of science educationin Ireland.

Science on Stage - Paul Nugent is demonstrating.

Anthony Caldwell and Declan Holmes - Science Ireland an impromtu session.

There was a big focus on Assessment for Learning and ThinkingSkills. Mr. Stephen Saimes demonstrated the effective use of theInteractive Whiteboard based on his own classroom activities. Dr.Siobhan O’Sullivan, Director of Bioethics Ireland addressed theissue “Human Enhancement: Making People Better or MakingBetter People”. There were workshops hosted by the DiscoverSensors, the Science on Stage and the Biology inservice teams.

At the business end of the conference the ISTA launched its policydocument on laboratory technicians. On Saturday night awardswere presented to 14 young science teachers. This was followed bythe presentation of the Science Educator of the Year to Ms. YvonneHiggins, Magh Ene College, Bundoran.

Meet DimitriMendeleev akaGordon Woods

On Sunday morning there were two talks, one on an Energy policyfor Ireland by Prof John Simmie and then Margaret Flaherty gave“An Illustrated Talk on Conservation in Ireland with a Special Focus onGlenveagh National Park”. The conference was wrapped up by aninspiring and humorous talk, the third part of a trilogy, given byMr. Graham Hewston, St. Clare’s Manorhamilton, Co. Leitrim.

The 47th annual conference is planned for Limerick from March20 -22nd 2009. Looking forward to meeting you there.

Joint North – South Science Teachers ConferencePadraig Ó’Léime, Chairman of the Organising Committee, Carrick Vocational School, Carrick, Co Donegal

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The Institute of Physics 2008 Award winning

teacher Michael Grehan, Belvedere College SJ in

Dublin in conversation with Tim Regan SLSSWhere were you born?

In the Dublin of 1949, between the canals. My parents andassorted ancestors were Dubliners too.

What did your parents work at? My Dad, Joe, is now enjoying his 26th year of retirement, ThankGod, after a career in chemical sales. My Mum worked at home andtried to keep me on the straight and narrow.

Where did you go to school? Terenure College, where I have thousands of happy memories. Iowe a lot to my science teachers especially the late Fr. PaddyGrace. Terenure and the Carmelites are associated with many realphysicists like Dr. Tony Scott and Fr. Paddy Burke of UCD, foundersof the Young Scientists Exhibition.

What other hobbies have you? I like the odd bit of landscape photography, cycling and enjoyingbeautiful books on Architecture, Art, Astronomy and more. I loveliving in Dublin where it’s easy to go along with friends toconcerts, art galleries, exhibitions and plays.

What projects have you been involved with?Since education is to “lead out” the best qualities of the wholeperson I’ve been known to dabble in the areas of Environment,Development, Human Rights and Peace education, greatly helpedby appropriate organisations. In physics I really enjoyed takingpart in projects such as “Life in the Universe” in CERN and “Physicson Stage” in Noordwijk, which led to the Physics on Stage Booklet.IOP events like Frontiers of Physics and the IOP Teacher Updates inthe UK are superb. I’d recommend any physics teacher to givethem a try, just as ISTA conferences and events are also a greatsource of inspiration. Science teachers are a friendly bunch.

Did you ever consider working in industry? No; working with young open minds is so much more enjoyablethan working for shareholder profits though I admire thededication of scientists who work in industry.

What prompted you to become a teacher of physics? I love the subject and enjoy discussing it with an interestedaudience despite the fact that I found Maths difficult in collegeand wouldn’t have a snowball’s of working as a research physicist.

Where have you taught?In 1971 I taught my first science class in Belvedere College and Istill enjoy teaching there every day. It’s inspiring to teach in aschool where students live out their best and most generousqualities especially as “Men for others” in a wide range of servicesfor people in need. In recent years I’ve moved from mostly JuniorScience to mostly Physics with great encouragement from myphysics colleague Steve Gibbons.

What do you enjoy most about teaching?Being aware of what a privilege it is to teach and having theresponsibility to nurture in young minds their concepts of theworld. Having a sense of wonder at what an amazing universe weinhabit and at the miracle of human consciousness and thecreativity and giftedness of each student. Having a bit of goodhumoured chat when students ask questions both on and off thesyllabus.

What are your thoughts on the physics syllabus? I like almost everything on the present syllabus though I have somereservations about the two options. The Applied Electricity is sovaluable for an understanding of everyday technology that most ofit should be compulsory. While Particle physics is spectacular itrequires students to learn facts for which the empirical evidence isout of their reach - and mine! I look forward to a physics syllabus

which would reward students for their own practical work, sinceexperiments are the foundation of physics.

What physics topics do you find most interesting to teach?I enjoy nearly every topic especially optics, waves and sound – asthey are so easily related to our senses, to the media and to howwe perceive the world.

In your experience what do students find difficult to comprehend? Circular motion and SHM are not their favourite flavours and somefind concepts like 1 newton of force surprisingly difficult.

What interactive methodologies do you emphasise?I think the mandatory experiments are very good as everyone isinvolved. Other experiments and demonstrations are best done bystudents where feasible. When a student asks “What wouldhappen if . . .? I like to say “come up and try that yourself”. Ihope to start adding some interaction with that excellent suite ofsimulations written by John Nunn: “Virtual Physics Laboratory”.

What advice would you give a student physics teacher?I’m sure the Education Departments of the Universities arerefining their H. Dip. courses all the time and have many answerswhich I wouldn’t know. However if a new teacher asked me Isuppose the following points might be worth considering : Prepare your classes well and guide your students by askingthem questions: “ Never tell a student anything she can tell you” was theexcellent advice I learned from Dr. Powell in the EducationDepartment of TCD. I suppose it goes back to Socrates. To me it means involve students in a dialogue in every class,asking questions like “If you were Michael Faraday what would youtry next” ? Chat about applications in every class – “How do you think aphotocopier works?” Emphasize connections all the time : “ What’s the connectionbetween a blue sky, a red sunset, a volcano and Leighlinbridge inCo. Carlow ? When you have to cover a lot of facts – tell them a story. Throwin a few historical details, preferably colourful ones. Encourage questions in every class and give loads of affirmationwhen good interesting questions are asked. Always be prepared tosay “I don’t know” when you don’t know and explain whether theanswer can be found by looking it up - or is still one of themissing bits of our understanding - like dark matter and darkenergy ? Emphasize that science is full of surprises and back this up withgood stories. Learn from your students – Learn from the best of their creativeideas – and also from their misconceptions – because these helpyou to refine the way you teach concepts. Enjoy it. Keep reminding your students what a wonderful subjectphysics is and keep telling them, when it’s true, how intelligenttheir observations are.

How did it feel to be awarded the IOP Physics Teacher Award?The letter from the IOP lay unopened for over a week as I assumedit was just confirming details of an IOP Teacher Update I wasabout to attend in Cambridge. When I eventually opened it I got ashock and when the reality sank in it felt a great honour to berecognised by the Institute of Physics. I felt that this must havesomething to do with affirming enthusiasm because I’m aware ofmy limitations in other areas like efficiency! I feel most gratefulto all the people working behind the scenes whose work gives suchencouragement to teachers.

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PISA is an international assessment by the OECD of the readingliteracy, scientific literacy and mathematical literacy of 15-year-old students. The PISA project takes place in three-year cyclesand the main areas or “domains” of reading, mathematics andscience are examined in every cycle. Science was the majordomain examined in 2006 and the results of PISA 2006 wererecently published. The data were gathered in 2006 from 15-year-old students in Ireland and analysed by the OECD in order tocompare student achievement in various aspects of scientificliteracy among a large number of OECD countries.

One of the aims of PISA 2006 was to study not only students’abilities in science but also their disposition towards science, i.e.attitudes, beliefs, motivational orientations, self-efficacy andvalues. In addition to helping students gain scientific andtechnical knowledge, important goals of science education are tohelp students develop interest in science and support for scientificenquiry. Attitudes toward science play an important role instudents’ decisions to develop their science knowledge further,pursue careers in science and use scientific concepts and methodproductively throughout their lives.

Data were gathered on students’ attitudes and engagement withscience in four areas:(i) Support for scientific enquiry, i.e. do students value scientific

ways of gathering evidence, thinking logically and communicating conclusions?

(ii) Self-belief as science learners, i.e. what are students’ appraisals of their own abilities in science?

(iii) Interest in science, i.e. are students interested in science-related social issues, are they willing to acquire scientific knowledge and skills and do they consider science-related careers?

(iv) Responsibility towards resources and environments, i.e. are students concerned about environmental issues?

In this short article it is not possible to report on all the findingsobtained in PISA 2006 but results obtained in the following keyareas will give a flavour of the type of responses received fromstudents in Ireland.

(a) Awareness of environmental issuesStudents’ awareness of environmental issues was assessed by asking them to indicate their familiarity with the five issues listed in Table 1.

It is clear that, with the exception of genetically modifiedorganisms, students in Ireland are above the OECD average in theirawareness of environmental issues.

This article gives an overview of some of the recent findings in the OECD’s Programme for InternationalStudent Assessment (PISA) report about the attitude of 15-year-old students in Ireland to science. Thearticle also discusses these findings in the context of general research findings in the literature aboutstudents’ attitudes to science.

Students’ Attitudes to ScienceDeclan Kennedy, Department of Education UCC

Table 1

Students are ‘ familiar with’ or’ know something about’... IRL OECD

... the consequences of clearing forests for other land use 81.8% 72.7%

... acid rain 82.7% 59.9%

... the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere 75.0% 58.4%

... nuclear waste 63.5% 52.7%

... the use of genetically modified organisms 26.0% 35.0%

Figure 1

(b) General value of scienceGeneral value of science was assessed by asking students toindicate their level of agreement with five statements relating topotential benefits of science, Table 2 and Fig. 1.

Table 2

Students ‘agree’ or ‘strongly agree’ that... IRL OECD

... science is important for helping us to understand the natural world 94.2% 92.9%

... advances in science and technology usually improve people’s living conditions 92.4% 91.6%

... science is valuable to society 85.7% 86.9%

... advances in science and technology usually help to improve the economy 84.5% 80.0%

... advances in science and technology usually bring social benefits 66.6% 75.0%


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lead to change in understanding about the possibility of life onMars. This may reflect the fact that most of the other questionsin this section are covered (to a greater or lesser extent) in theJunior Cert syllabus whereas life on Mars is not.

Figure 3

(d) Interest in scienceItems examining a general interest in science asked students abouttheir interest in specific areas of science. A total of 77% ofstudents in Ireland (68% across OECD countries) indicated high ormedium interest in human biology. However, only 41% of studentsin Ireland (49% across OECD countries) indicated high or mediuminterest in topics in physics and only 44% of students in Ireland(50% across OECD countries) expressed an interest in chemistry.The low interest in the physical science relative to the biologicalsciences is reflected in the uptake of these subjects for LeavingCertificate (Fig 4 and Fig 5).

In terms of students’ engagement in science, the main results maybe summarised as follows:• Students in Ireland reported low levels of involvement in the

activities contributing to the engagement in science-related activities.

Figure 2

It is clear that most students in Ireland expressed agreement withthe view that science is important for understanding the naturalworld and that advances in science and technology usually improvepeople’s living conditions. However, one quarter of students inIreland and one third across OECD countries did not agree with theview that advances in science and technology usually bring socialbenefits.

(c) Self efficacy in scienceStudents’ self-efficacy in science (confidence in their ability toperform science tasks) was measured by asking them to indicatehow much effort they would expend in solving each of eight tasks.

Table 3

Students could ‘easily’, or ‘with a bit of effort’... IRL OECD

… explain why earthquakes occur more frequently in some areas than in others 81.3% 76.2%

… recognise the science question that underlies a newspaper report on a health issue 68.2% 73.1%

… interpret the scientific information provided on the labelling of food items 63.7% 64.4%

… predict how changes to an environment will affect the survival of a certain species 63.2% 64.4%

… identify the science question associated with disposal of waste 68.9% 61.9%

… describe the role of antibiotics in the treatment of disease 55.0% 58.8%

… identify the better of two explanations for the formation of acid rain 64.5% 57.8%

… discuss how new evidence can lead you tochange your understanding about the possibility of life on Mars 41.1% 50.7%

For example, more students in Ireland (81%) than on averageacross OECD countries (76%) said they could explain whyearthquakes occur. Clearly, for students in Ireland this question istesting their ability at geography rather than in science.Interestingly, fewer students in Ireland (41%) than across OECDcountries (51%) said they could discuss how new evidence could


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• Only 11% of students in Ireland (compared to 20% across OECD countries) reported that they regularly or very often ‘read science magazines or science newspaper articles’. Only students in Japan and the United Kingdom (8% in both countries)reported reading science articles less frequently.

• Students in Ireland were less likely to report visiting websites about science topics (8%), than on average across OECD countries (13%).

Clearly, the low uptake of the physical sciences and the low levelof engagement of students in science-related activities is cause forconcern. As science teachers, not only do we wish our students tolearn about science but we also hope that our students will gain anappreciation of the important role of science in our everyday lives,that they will share in our excitement of science, that theirexperience of science will be an enjoyable one and, hopefully, thisexperience of science will encourage them to continue with theirstudy of science beyond Junior Certificate.

Concern about students’ attitudes to science began to appear asfar back as the 1940s in the School Science Review. “It thereforefollows, as a fundamental principle, that the teacher must start ifpossible from the pupils’ background of experience… he must makescientific knowledge appear immediately useful, practical andvaluable and not present it as abstract academic knowledgedivorced from everyday life” (McKenzie, 1941). N.L. Hislop andE.J. Weeks (1948) examined pupils’ interest in a range of schoolsubjects, and established that interest in physics and chemistrydeclined sharply with age, whilst interest in biology increased. Inthe 1960s in the UK the Dainton Report referred to the ‘swing fromscience’ and stated that ‘the trends are now beyond doubt. Notonly has a willingness to study science and technology amongstschoolchildren decreased, but too few of our graduates in thesesubjects are going into productive industry or school’ (Dainton DES1968).

In general, research findings on students’ attitudes to schoolscience may be summarised as follows:

• A number of studies have shown that young people entering secondary school generally feel very positive about science andare looking forward to science lessons. (Brown 1976, Johnson 1987, Bennett and Hogarth, 2005)

• Other studies have shown that attitudes to school science become less positive over the years of secondary schooling. Overall, positive attitudes to science decline with age. Attitudes decline most sharply between the ages of 12 and 14 (Kelly 1986, Hendley et al. 1996).

• By the age of 16, a significant majority of pupil’s report that thescience curriculum is over-full and lacks relevance to their lives. (Ramsden 1997, Osborne and Collins 1999)

• The decline is most marked for physical science subjects. Physical science subjects are seen as more difficult than other subjects (Cheng et al. 1995)

• Fitzgibbon and Vincent (1994) demonstrated that a pupil optingfor A-Level physical science subjects was likely to get lower grades than if they had opted for other subjects. This finding reinforced the views of students that physical sciences were harder.

What can be done to improve students’ attitudes to science?One of the key research findings in this area is that sciencecurriculum materials which put science in context and emphasisethe applications of science are successful in fostering a morepositive attitude to science in pupils. Pupils following courseswhich place a particular emphasis on approaching science conceptsthrough contexts and applications (Science, Technology, Society -STS) report higher levels of interest and enjoyment in their sciencelessons than pupils following more traditional science courses(Ramsden, 1997).

In addition, it has been found that students who do go on to studyscience subjects are very likely to cite their teachers and theteaching they received as stimulating their interest in science. (ASE1969, Woolnough 1994). In addition, it has been found that scienceteachers are happiest and feel that they are doing a good job whenthey are teaching within their main specialist area (Woolnough,1994).

Thus, the results from PISA 2006 and research findings in theliterature point the way ahead for us. Firstly, we must developJunior Certificate science syllabi that are STS focussed, i.e. helpstudents to see how science relates to their everyday lives.Secondly, we must cherish our science teachers and give them allthe necessary back-up resources and training to ensure that theycan teach science in an enthusiastic and inspirational manner.

REFERENCES

Bennett, J. (2001) Science with attitude: The perennial issue of pupils’responses to science. School Science Review. 82 (300), 59 – 67)

Bennett, J and Hogarth, S. (2005). Would you want to talk to a scientistat a party?: Students’ attitudes to school science and science.Department of Educational Studies, The University of York. York :University of York.

Gardner, P. (1975) Attitudes to Science: A Review. Studies in ScienceEducation, 2, 1-41.

OECD (2007) PISA 2006 Science Competencies for Tomorrow’s World.Volume 1: Analysis.

Osborne, J., Driver, R. and Simon, S. (1998) Attitudes to science: issuesand concerns. School Science Review, 79 (288), 27-33.

Simon, S. (2000) Students’ attitudes towards science. In M. Monk andJ. Osborne. Good Practice in Science Teaching: What research has tosay. Buckingham: Open University Press.


Interesting Science Facts• When a flea jumps, the rate of acceleration is 20 times that of the space shuttle during launch.

• If you slowly pour a handful of salt into a totally full glass of water it will not overflow. In fact, the water level will go down.

• The maximum speed that raindrops can fall at is around 18mph, depending on their size.

• There's enough gold in the Earth's crust to cover the entire land surface knee-deep.

• Whales talk to each other by making a loud clicking noise. The sound waves travel extremely well underwater and they can hear each other from 100 miles away.

• The only letter not appearing on the Periodic Table is the letter J.

• Because of thermal expansion the Eiffel Tower is 15cm taller in summer.

• The first organic compound to be synthesized from inorganic ingredients was done by Friedrich Wöhler in 1828 synthesizing urea from ammonia and cyanic acid.

• You weigh less if you stand at the equator than if you stand at the North Pole. This is because the equator is actually further away from the centre of the earth, so the force of gravity is less.

• Fritz Haber developed chlorine gas for use by the Germans in World War I. (Unable to live with this, his wife commited suicide in 1915).

• The mass of the Earth increases every year because of 3,000 tonnes of meteorite debris that hitsits surface from space.

• Helium was first identified when French astronomer Pierre-Jules-César Janssen obtained evidence for the existence when observing the solar eclipse of 1868 in India when he detected a new yellow line, at 587.49 nanometers, in the solar spectrum.

• Men are six times more likely to be struck by lightning than women.

• The Moon is gradually moving away from the Earth and the tides are to blame. Every year, the Moon moves a further 3.82cm from the Earth.

• The amount of carbon in the human body is enough to fill about 9,000 'lead' pencils.

• Gold leaf is pure gold, but you can cover large areas with it very cheaply because it is very thin. Gold leaf is less than 0.00008 millimetres thick - which is only about 300 atoms thick.

• Astatine is a radioactive element so rare that if you searched the entire planet you’d only find a lump the size of a sugar cube.

If you would like to contribute anarticle for the next issue of themagazine, or if you have tried

different teaching techniques andwould like to contribute to the

next issue of the magazineplease contact us.

Contact details are given on the inside cover

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What is the lowest form of teaching? What type ofteaching did you find most boring as a student? When I talk tostudents they often say that the most boring lessons were thosewhen the teacher just read material from the textbook. ‘Doing itby the book’ may be OK for the police but it is not OK forteachers.

Using textbooks correctly is an important aspect of scienceteaching. However, the textbook should be a learning resourcefor the student not a crutch for the teacher. In my opinion thelowest form of teaching consists of reading from the textbook –if you’ve experienced it as a student you’ll know what I mean: itis a deadly and mind-numbing experience.

Textbooks should normally be kept closed and in the student s’bags. If you are introducing a new topic then the textbook is adistraction and pupils will tend to read it rather than listening toyou. If you are revising a lesson and asking questions, the firstthing is to ask for all books and copies to be closed – otherwiseyou are only testing the pupil’s ability to read.!

The dangers of the textbookTextbooks can be dangerous for a number of reasons. Firstlytextbooks cannot always be guaranteed to be correct in alldetails. Diagrams in books don’t always reflect reality e.g. theyoften don’t show stands and clamps and this can mislead pupilswhen they set up apparatus. Sometimes the facts are wrong asthey reflect the author’s knowledge and understanding of thesubject. If you become too dependent on one textbook, withouthaving a broader background and other resources to refer to,then you may propagate those errors and misunderstandings.

Secondly, the explanations given are not always correct. Thisdepends on the writer’s knowledge and understanding of theirsubject. Topics may be presented in an incorrect or unsuitableway, and may propagate rather than correct misconceptions.

Thirdly, the material may not always be presented in the bestteaching order or approach e.g. giving an answer before the

Do you suffer from textbook addiction?Peter E. Childs, Dept. of Chemical and Environmental Sciences, University of Limerick, Limerick.

[email protected]

question; introducing difficult concepts too early in a course inrelation to pupils’ intellectual ability; stating an idea withoutintroducing and developing the idea. A good example is density.Instead of introducing the idea through simple experiments andillustrations (see the previous article on “Teaching forunderstanding”), the formula and definition are often given atthe start of the chapter, instead at the end. If you become toodependent on the textbook then its structure and sequence oftopics becomes a straitjacket to your own teaching and you donot take ownership of the material for yourself. Of course, it isalways easier to do it the textbook’s way, as doing it yourselftakes time and effort.

Fourthly, the textbook may prevent the pupils from developingan investigative approach to science. If the textbook describesthe experiment and procedure, gives the results and theconclusion, then there is not a lot of point in doing theexperiment - it just becomes an exercise in repetition. The pupilwill then never develop a proper scientific approach to solving aproblem or answering a practical question. The textbook isgiving them pre-digested answers and they don’t need to do anychewing themselves. Intellectually they are being fed theequivalent of mental junk food. In fact, they may end up notdoing the experiment at all in favour of just copying it out of thebook and into their practical notebook.

Fifthly, textbooks may undermine the stated objectives of acourse or the syllabus by presenting material in a way thatcontradicts these objectives. For example, presentingexperiments as recipes or verifications rather than asinvestigations or real experiments (see “When is an experimentnot an experiment?”). Or in giving the impression that science isabout learning a lot of boring and useless facts, rather thandeveloping an understanding of and a way of looking at thenatural world. (See the article on “Teaching for understanding”).

Sixthly, the textbook doesn’t always explainclearly what the pupils areexpected to know or do atthe end of the topic i.e. thelearning outcomes orobjectives. Students shouldknow what they are expectedto be able to do at the end ofa topic and of course thisshould be keyed to theobjectives of the syllabus. Oneof the problems in the past hasbeen that the syllabus andguidelines have not alwaysstated clearly the expectedoutcomes e.g. in relationto the depth oftreatment of a topic. This


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means that the teacher becomes dependent on the textbook tointerpret the syllabus and hopes that the examiners have thesame views!

Seventhly, textbooks don’t always give questions that cover thewhole spectrum of cognitive abilities, from lower order thinkingskills (LOTS) to higher order (HOTS), which are needed todevelop understanding. Too often the questions in the text andat the end of the chapter just test lower order thinking skills likerecall of information and definitions. The questions shouldinclude some higher order questions to test and developunderstanding. The pupils should be asked to use the scientificprinciples just covered to explain everyday observations(thinking questions).

Eighthly, textbooks don’t always relate the ideas covered to thepupils’ everyday lives in Ireland, through examples, photos,extracts from newspapers etc., although the latest textbooks aremuch better than in the past in their use of colour andillustrations. But a textbook is always out of date - by a few yearsor by many, and the latest applications of science are in thepapers and on TV now. If you want to make your teachingrelevant you have to step outside the textbook and into the realworld (see the article on “Relevance, relevance, relevance”.)

Ninthly, if you don’t make surethat books are kept in pupil’s bagsor are unopened on the desk, thenthe book will undermine yourattempts to teach or to introduceor examine a topic. The pupils willread ahead; they will concentrateon the book rather than listeningto you; they will read the answersfrom the book instead of trying toremember them. A question at thestart of the lesson: “What did wedo last week?” is pointless if theirbooks or copies are open in frontof them.

How should the teacher use the textbook?The main purpose of a textbook is for revision and self-study bythe pupil and it should be written and structured for thispurpose, not for reading out in class. The teacher should preparea lesson and teach a topic using a range of resources andteaching aids, rather than slavishly following the textbook. Thedanger is that both the teacher and the pupil become addictedto using the textbook, which for them totally defines the course,rather than being used as a supplementary resource. A goodtextbook should structure and explain the material clearly, withappropriate use of examples, diagrams and photos to illustrateand explain the concepts. The pupil should be able to use thebook for revision and self-study after the teacher has introducedand explained the material in class. A textbook can be too short,so that it doesn’t give enough detail or explanation; or too long,where too much information is given that overloads andconfuses the pupil and obscures the main points.

The textbook is meant for the pupil not the teacher and if theteacher only teaches what is in the book, they have short-changed the pupils. The teacher must always know more andhave extra resources than those in the chosen textbook. The

teacher needs to be able to explain a difficult idea in more thanone way and have more examples than those in the book. If allyou can do is repeat what’s in the textbook then you havetextbook addiction and your pupils don’t really need the teacher– they can read the book instead. The main use of the textbookis for the pupil to use at home to go over the topic again,perhaps in a slightly different way, to consolidate their ideas andpractise using their knowledge in answering questions. If you usethe textbook like this there is really no need for pupils to bringthem to school - they can copy down the reading assignment andhomework problems.

In many ways a workbook rather than a textbook would be moreuseful, and some books come with an accompanying workbook.These give questions to answer, diagrams to label, activities todo, exercises like crosswords etc., rather than having theinformation all pre-packaged and pre-digested for the student.

Choosing a textbookNot all textbooks are created equal. Some textbooks are betterthan others, although this evaluation will depend on both theteachers and the pupils using the books. Make sure you look atand evaluate all the available textbooks before recommendingone for the school. The first one on the market is not always thebest but if often dominates the market because teachers adoptit and then are locked into using it for several years. This oftenhappens when a new syllabus comes in. I often meet teacherswho have chosen a book in haste and regretted at leisure, asthey find after using it for a while that it is unsatisfactory. It isthen difficult if not impossible to change the recommendedbook, which is on the school book lists.

However, whatever book ischosen as the pupil’s textbook,the teacher should have accessto all the available Irishtextbooks as well as other booksand resources. A selection ofmodern GCSE and A level booksfrom the UK is very useful. Asthe teacher you need to pickand choose the best ideas andactivities to teach a topic, ratherthan sticking to the textbookthe students use. You shouldchoose a book which mostclosely fits your own teachingstyle and approach to thecourse. Weight and price are notthe most important factors in choosing a book!

Should pupils take notes in class?Why should pupils take notes if it’s all in the book anyway? Thisis often said and reflects a major textbook dependence. Whyshould pupils take notes in class? There are a number of reasonsfor this. Firstly, you may want to give them different material ina different order and structure to that in the book. You canprovide your own summary and structure for a topic. Your job isto provide the structure, the scaffolding, for a topic on which thepupils can build their knowledge. Secondly, if all the pupils do islook and listen in class then they will remember less than if theyalso write something down. The act of writing and drawing


helps the pupil to learn and remember the material. If they don’tdo something in class then the material covered tends toevaporate from their minds. They should leave every class withat least a summary of what was covered. Thirdly, problems needto be worked out and written down to get practice in doingthem rather than watching the teacher do them on the board orreading them in the textbook. Fourthly, you need to give pupilspractise in class in answering questions, writing summaries,putting things into their own words, doing comprehensionexercises etc., which all help to reinforce and consolidate theirknowledge and develop understanding. Fifthly, they need todevelop the good scientific habit of recording results andwriting up experiments whilst doing the experiment. They

should alwaysrecord resultsduring class in aproper formatand ideallydraw thec o n c l u s i o n salso. Doing andwriting up ane x p e r i m e n tshould beintegrated asfar as possible.

It is not a good idea to leave it for homework or to do a roughcopy in class and rewrite it at home. Also, they should writewhat they did and what they found out in their own words – notcopying it down from the board, or worse, going home andcopying out the textbook into their practical notebook. It issmall step from this to not doing the experiment at all and justcopying it out.

Every lesson should contain a mix of activities – doing, listening,talking, writing etc., using the pupils’ different senses and avariety of stimuli. Reading the textbook out loud, sadly toooften used as a teaching technique, is not the most stimulatingactivity! However, reading a newspaper article and thendiscussing it, answering questions on it, summarising its mainideas etc. is a useful teaching idea, which also connects thescience to the real world of today, and much more fun thanreading the textbook.

The purpose of this article is to make you think about how youuse the textbook in your teaching. Have you become toodependent on the textbook? Do you suffer from textbookaddiction? Remember, reading from the book is the lowest formof teaching, not the highest!

Ask your pupils if you don’t believe me.

Tionscanamh Feadán RubenChonaic mé roinnt físeanna ar suíomh idirlíon YouTubehttp://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=HpovwbPGEoo faoi anfeadán seo, agus mhuscail sé fiosracht ionam a chur chun oibremé. Is iontach an taispeántas é, dom féin fiú amháin, chuntuiscint níos fearr a fháil ar Éadlúthcháin agus Combhrúnna anAeir i leith Fadthonnta na Fuaime.

Is mór an trua é nach bhfuil a leithéid ar fáil ar phraghas reasúnta.Cuireann sé as dom go gcaithimid an méid sin airgead a thabhairtdo chomhlachtaí soláithreachta eolaíochta agus is minic nachmbíonn a gcuid aiseanna thar mholadh beirte, ach sin scéalthairis. Sa tionscanamh seo cheannaigh mé na h-uirlisí ar fad isiopa crua earraí ar chostas an-bheag (< €50), agus bhaineastaitneamh as an am a chaitheas ag obair air (< 15 uair ar fad).

Is é Heinric Ruben (Gearmánach) a tháinig ar an dtaispeántasiontach seo. Chuir sé 200 poll i bhfeadán 4 mheádar, agus líonsé an píopa le gás. Nuair a chuir sé foinse fuaime ag deireadhan phíopa chonaic sé patrún aoibhinn. Ach bhí clú agus cáil arRuben freisin, is é a chur Max Planck chun oibre ar a thuairimífaoin Raon Chandamacha le torthaí turgnaimh.

Oibríonn Feadán Ruben ar bhunphrionsabal na fadthonntagluaisne. Cuireann foinse fuinnimh brú ar an Aer díreach amachroimhe, agus gluaiseann an brú seo ar aghaidh tríd an meán. Is

ar an slí seo a bhogann an fuinneamh ó áit go h-áit. Cruthaíonnan fadthonn láthair brú sa mheán: Éadlúthcháin (dlús íseal)agus Comhbhrúnna (ard bhrú). Is féidir é seo a léiriú le Slinky,ach is dóigh liom gur fearr an Feadán Ruben mar go bhfuil tineagus ceol i gceist!

Bhí taispeántas bunaithe ar seo cheana, ag baint úsáide aspúdar i bhfeadán agus tonnta cónaitheacha, cruthaithe agKundt. Cruthaíonn Tonn Cónaitheach Nódanna agusFrithnódanna, áit a mbaillíonn an púdar le chéile. Ach dá n-úsáidfimís Própán nó Bútán in áit an meán sin, cad a tharlódhmaidir leis na h-Éadlúthcháin agus na Combhrúnna? Cinntebheadh siad ann, ach dá lasfá an gás, cad a tharlódh? Lasann angás i bhfad níos fearr, agus níos airde ag láthair an Chombhrú.Ach is beag an lasair a thagann in áit an Éadlúthchán.Cruthaíonn sé seo athrú in airde na lasracha ar an bhfeadán. Isféidir an fad idir an dá lasair is airde a thomhas; tá sé seocothrom le leath tonnfhad na toinne cónaitheacha. TáMinicíocht na toinne ar eolas, os rud é go gcruthítear é leríomhaire nó le ginnitheoir fuaime. Ar an slí seo is féidir luas nafuaime sa mheán (Própán) a fháil.

Ní cheart dearmad a dhéanamh, áfach, ar áileacht antaispeántais seo, agus iontas na ndaltaí. Os rud é nach bhfuil anuirlis seo ar an tSiollabas, ní gá an-iomarca eolais a thabhairtfaoi. Is feidir na daltaí a thabhairt ar an dtuiscint, trícheisteanna oiriúnacha, gur Fadthonn de chineál áirithe í anFhuaim.

Sin é bunús Fheadáin Ruben agus is taispeántas aoibheann é aspreagann iontas na ndaltaí chun tuiscint níos fearr a fháil arFhadthonnta.

S.Ó’Bric, Pobalscoil Chorcha Dhuibhne, An Daingean, Trá Lí, Co. Chiarraí. [email protected]

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Build your own LevitronA simple device made from magnets and copper bars from the

Belgium Science on Stage team.

Brian Masterson, De La Salle College, Churchtown, Dublin 14

You will need….About 8 neodymium cylindrical magnets (1 x 20 mm diameter 7 x 8 mm approx.)2 bars of copper 50 mm wide x 75 mm long x 15 mm thick4 rubber corks 25 mm longSome spacers; e.g. plastic boxes small sponge etc.

Background:Levitation is very topical at present. We have all seen demonstrations of levitationusing magnets on superconducting cooled materials and know of the trains in Japanetc. but how can we show something like this in class? Patrick Walravens from Belgiumdemonstrated this at Science on Stage 2. Here is an attempt to reproduce hisexperiment.

Follow these steps:1. Arrange the blocks and magnets as shown.2. Place the large neodymium magnet overhead with about six smaller ones as a

handle.3. Place one small neodymium magnet on bottom block so as to be attracted to the

large magnet overhead 4. Place about 25 mm thickness of spacers on top copper block ( e.g. plastic boxes,

Pringles lid, pH paper box and sponge from microsope cover slips box in use here)Ideally include something which can be compressed.

5. Try various levels of spacing and finally compress down to the lowest level possible.6. You will notice that the lower magnet lifts off, floats and levitates.

It will slowly move up to the top copper block7. You can, with fine adjustment, find a position where the magnet levitates about 2- 3 mm above the lower

block even when the strong magnet overhead is still.

So what happened?The magnet appeared to levitate about 2 mm above the bottom copperblock, lifting slowly towards the overhead copper block. There is agravity force acting downwards on the magnet and an almost equalmagnetic force acting upwards. The balancing force can be explained bythe generation of eddy currents according to Lenz’s Law i.e. creatingmagnetic fields to oppose the motion of the magnet.

What is more difficult to explain is why it levitates at about 2 mm whenthe large magnet overhead is static.

What next?Place a paper underneath and verify that you can remove it easily showing no contact between the magnet andblock. You can also spin the levitating magnet. I have tried other metals but with little success. It would probablywork better with thicker copper or gold bars!

Copper blocks are available from Miko Metals Cork. See catalogue at www.miko.ie Neodymium magnets are available from Briglec Limited, Sandyford Industrial Estate, Dublin 18, as well as usualschool science suppliers. Total cost about forty euros.


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Build your own Particle AcceleratorA simple device made from magnets and ball bearings from

Science on Stage UK and Germany.

Brian Masterson, De La Salle College, Churchtown, Dublin 14

You will need….4 neodymium cylindrical magnets (20 mm diameter approx)2 metres of electrical conduit to make a track ( U shape without cover, width 25mm)18 metal balls ( 10 mm diam)

Background:This easy to make device appeared in various forms on Scienceon Stage in Grenoble. You can demonstrate that accelerationof a particle takes place and have a bit of fun with first years.

Follow these steps:1. Cut the conduit into two pieces each of 1m length.

2. Place the four magnets at intervals of 20cm and stick intoconduit with sellotape. You may have to pare off the lip at top of conduit if magnets are a tight fit.

3. Load up 16 balls by placing 4 at front end of each magnet.

4. Place a piece of wood ( 10 cm high) or book under back endto give the track a slope.

5. Place the other conduit track beside it on a similar piece ofwood and set it up for a race.

6. Place remaining two balls at top of each track and ask students to predict which one reaches the bottom fastest.

7. Let them go!

8. Reload the balls and repeat.

So what happened?The metal ball on the track containing the magnets gets to the bottom really quickly showing that acceleration otherthan that caused by gravity has taken place. The balls clearly have been attracted by the magnetic force andaccelerated. The balls collide with the magnet and transfer the momentum to the last metal ball on the other sidecausing it to move on and speed up in turn. Note that you do need the four balls at each magnet. If you try it withless the magnet has too strong a grip and the ball will not be released.

For explanation visit http://phys.csuchico.edu/kagan/profdev/GaussAccelerator.pdf

What next?You can discuss the physics involved such as the relationship between force and acceleration and also conservationof momentum at each collision, acceleration of electrons in TV tubes or simply have a bit of fun with it on the openday!

Neodymium magnets available from Briglec Limited, Sandyford Industrial Estate, Dublin 18. and school sciencesuppliers. You can recycle old metal balls from a wheel bearing or order from a catalogue.

For more information Google Gaussian Gun or visithttp://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Linear_Magnet_Accelerators


Current Approaches To Teaching Physics InSecondary Schools In Great Britain Feb 2008

In total, just over half (51%) of teachers of physicsinterviewed have a degree, or an equivalentqualification, in physics (these teachers are referred tothroughout the report as ‘physics specialists’).

Almost three-quarters (73%) of physics teachers inScotland are physics specialists, a significantly higherproportion than in Wales and England where 61% and 48%have physics degrees, or equivalent, respectively.

Encouragingly, teachers of physics are in the mainconfident about teaching the subject – almost all are atleast fairly confident (97%) with around eight in ten (78%)of those surveyed describing themselves as veryconfident. Unsurprisingly, physics specialists aresignificantly more likely to feel confident about teachingthe subject than those who are not specialised in thesubject (net confidence = +99 percentage pointscompared with +94 percentage points respectively).

To increase their effectiveness and confidence, half ofphysics teachers claim that training is needed. Mostnotably, three in five of those who are not physicsspecialists (60%) say they could be better supported byreceiving training in the subject. In contrast, those whoare physics specialists are more likely than those who arenot to require access to peer support via websites andprofessional networks etc. (23% compared with 14%respectively).

Students PerceptionOverall, the reason most commonly stated by teachers ofphysics as a positive influence on pupils’ perceptions ofand engagement with physics is the opportunity forpractical work and experiments. This is the biggestpositive influence for all the types of pupil we askedabout, with the exception of girls, for whom careerprospects are a more influential factor, according tophysics teachers.

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More experiments and field trips will helpchildren enjoy physics, say teachers in new surveyamong the new findings in Science Museum / Shellsurvey:• 79% of teachers regret lack of opportunities to learn

outside the classroom• 51% want more hands-on experiments in class• 34% would welcome an overhaul of the physics

syllabus to increase pupil engagement• 49% do not hold a physics degree

BackgroundA shortage of physics specialists on teacher trainingcourses and being recruited to schools has led a numberof commentators, including Alan Smithers, Professor ofEducation and Director of the Centre for Education andEmployment Research at the University of Buckingham,to warn of the challenges facing physics in schools andcolleges:

‘Physics is in danger of disappearing frommany schools in England and Wales,threatened by both a teacher shortage andthe emergent view that science is sciencewhen it comes to teaching’

Professor Smithers

A total of 317 physics teachers in a regionallyrepresentative sample of secondary schools wereinterviewed by telephone between 21st January and12th February 2008.

Gender of respondents

Teaching PhysicsAt a national level, the mean proportion of pupils takingGCSE/ Standard Grade physics is lowest in England, withjust 17% on average taking the subject, compared with33% in Wales and 34% in Scotland.


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Conversely, the perceivedmaths aspect of physics and,perhaps linked to this, thechallenge of physics as asubject are issues consideredby physics teachers to be thebiggest negative influencesoverall on pupils’ perceptionsof and engagement withphysics. Once more, thesefactors are common across allpupil groups with theexception of female pupils,for whom being female (thatis, perceptions of physicsbeing a ‘male subject’) isconsidered to be the biggestnegative factor.

Physics specialists are more likely than average (17%versus 13% overall) to highlight specialist andenthusiastic/inspiring teachers as a positive influenceon younger pupils.

More than a fifth (22%) of physics teachers interviewedbelieve that pupils in Years 7-9/S1 and S2 areunenthusiastic about physics due to the challenge of thesubject. A similar proportion (21%) highlight theperceived maths aspects of physics as a negativeinfluence on younger pupils’ perceptions of andengagement with physics.

Career prospects and role models are the two factorswhich physics teachers believe most strongly influencefemale pupils’ positive perceptions of and engagementwith physics (15% each). Female physics teachers aremore likely than their male counterparts to highlightrole models as a positive influence on female pupils,perhaps an indication that this influenced their ownengagement in the subject (22% female teachersmention role models, compared with 12% maleteachers).

According to physics teachers, the biggest negativeinfluence on female pupils’ perception of andengagement with physics is due to them being female,and this is particularly the case for those teaching inScotland (52% mention the issue of gender, comparedwith 28% overall).

Once again, an opportunity for practical work andexperiments is considered to be the biggest positiveinfluence, this time for male pupils specifically (29%).

The challenge of physics as a subject is considered to bethe main negative influence on male pupils’ perceptionsand engagement with physics, and this is particularly sofor those teaching in Scotland (45% mention thechallenge of physics, compared with 22% nationally).The perceived maths aspect of physics is another

negative influence mentioned specificallyfor male pupils by around a fifth (19%) ofphysics teachers. This is something whichmale teachers are twice as likely tohighlight as an issue than their femalecounterparts (22% compared with 11%respectively).

The most frequently mentioned step,which more than a third (34%) of physicsteachers believe needs to be taken inorder to improve pupil engagement inphysics, is an overhaul of the physicssyllabus/curriculum to improve its appealto pupils. This is particularly prevalentamong male physics teachers

Teaching and Learning MethodsThe most frequently mentioned methodof teaching physics is teacher-to-pupil

demonstrations of experiments or practical work – allphysics teachers interviewed cite this as a method theyuse to deliver physics.

Other popular teaching and learning methods includepupil-led, hands-on experiments and practical work, TVprogrammes, slideshows, films etc. and lessons usinginteractive whiteboards (IWB) and other ICT (97% each).Physics specialists are more likely than non-specialistcolleagues to say theyare using fieldtrips tomuseums, sciencecentres, industry etc.,shows and workshops,and seminars with localschools as part of theirphysics delivery.

Over half of teachers surveyed (53%) say there are nomethods of teaching and learning they would like to useless than they do now. After this, though, the method byfar the most frequently mentioned as one they wouldlike to use less is lessons delivered through traditional‘chalk and talk’ – more than a third (35%) of physicsteachers say this.

A third of physics teachers interviewed would like toinclude more pupil-led, hands-on experiments andpractical work. Another method, which is already beingused by many physics teachers, but which around aquarter (24%) say they would like to use more, is the useof interactive whiteboards and other ICT.

This is particularly the case for physics teachers inScotland (39%) compared with those teaching elsewhere.Furthermore, female physics teachers are more likelythan their male colleagues to want to make more use ofexternal speakers giving talks and lectures to pupils(28% compared with 16% respectively).


A shortage of funds and resources is the main barrierpreventing physics teachers from delivering physicsusing different methods more frequently than they donow. Almost half (49%) cite this reason, though thisfigure drops slightly among those teaching in England(46%). More than half (53%) of teachers who thinkthere are too few opportunities for big, complicatedexperiments and demonstrations cite this as a barrier.

Learning outside the classroomThe learning activity for which the biggest proportionof physics teachers consider there to be too fewopportunities is learning outside the classroom – overthree-quarters (79%) think there are too fewopportunities, and only around a fifth (21%) thinkthere are about the right amount of opportunities forlearning outside the classroom.

Value in different teaching and learningmethodsThe main value in providing pupils with opportunities forhands-on experiments and practical work, according tomore than half (56%) of physics teachers interviewed, isthat it consolidates the theory that pupils have learnedand aides in their understanding. Nearly two-thirds (63%)of physics teachers believe that learning outside theclassroom is valuable in showing pupils how physics can beapplied in the real world.

Regardless of their sex or location, when it comes tolearning outside the classroom, a far higher proportion(57%) of physics teachers say that not enough value isplaced on providing pupils with this type of learning activity.

For more information, and a copy of the full research results, pleasecontact Michael Barrett or Kirsten Canning at The Press Office on020 8295 2424, 07813-558772 or [email protected] OrKerry Law – 020 7942 4328 / [email protected]

Coláiste Muire Ballymote Visit CERNKieran Coen, Coláiste Muire Ballymote Co. Sligo

My leaving cert physics students responded very enthusiastically to

the nuclear physics part of the course and chose to study the particle

physics option for their leaving cert. As part of their studies they

became interested in the facility at Geneva run by CERN (Conseil

European pour Recherche Nuclaire) - in particular the Large Hadron

Collider (LHC) experiment – now nearing completion.

A comparison between this LHC and Cockcroft and Walton’s proton

accelerator (which is on display in the Imperial science museum in

London) in terms of size and cost really manages to focus students’

attention on the enormous significance of this particularly European

achievement. It is a matter of some disappointment - despite the

supposedly significant renaming of our Department of Education to

the present “Dept of Education AND Science” - that Ireland is not a

participating member of CERN.

Some of the students looked up the CERN website and asked me

about the possibility of visiting the LHC before it starts up this

summer. I contacted the visit service through the website and

requested information about a possible visit. The next availability

would have been in October – no good for my present leaving cert

students. However, the service pointed out that the Open Day was

to be held on Sunday April 6th and this would be one of the last

opportunities to visit the underground facilities because once the

beam is operational visits will only take place on the surface.

I came back with this information to my leaving certs and fifth years

and we rapidly organised flights and accommodation through NST

Travel Company. Seventeen of us flew from Belfast to Geneva and

took in a visit to the United Nations Palais des Nations for good

measure.

The experience was truly rewarding. I was delighted with my

students’ enthusiasm for the whole project. It really is on a mind

boggling scale – 27 kilometres of tunnels 100 meters underground

involving thousands of scientists and engineers from dozens of

countries. All this for pure research! Some of the physics

explanations were well beyond leaving cert level but the enthusiasm

of the CERN staff is infectious and they managed to communicate

very obscure aspects of nuclear physics with great ease. I feel it

really brought the whole enterprise of modern physics alive for my

students and I would really recommend it to all physics teachers

who choose the particle physics option.

We read about huge

international undertakings

such as the ITER project -

which hopes to solve some of

the problems associated with

fusion (which could truly

change our world for the

better) - but I have to say

nothing quite inspires like

being there!

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A shared transition yearproject was undertakenby Philip Walsh (theHistory teacher) andStephen Campion (TYscience teacher) at thebeginning of the schoolyear. This involved amodule on Militaryhistory and the science

of early weapons. Students carried out hands on research todetermine which ration biscuit had the highest energy value,they tested methods of food preservation, and also if sizeeffected heat loss for a soldier. The final part of the moduleconsisted of the construction and firing of a 12th century siegeweapon called a trebuchet.

Before the use of cannons, the trebuchet was perhaps the mosteffective weapon against a castle. A trebuchet is a medievalweapon used to smash the walls of castles. It was capable oflaunching a greater payload a greater distance and with moreforce than any other catapult. The counterweight trebuchetappeared in both Christian and Muslim lands around theMediterranean in the twelfth century. It worked by dropping agreat weight that was attached to the short end of a long arm.

Trebuchets were invented in China inabout the 4th century, came to Europein the 6th century. It didn’t becomeobsolete until the 16th century, wellafter the use of gunpowder. Trebuchetswere much more accurate than othermedieval catapults. The trebuchet wasprimarily an offensive weapon.

The trebuchet project was broken intostages: (i) research and brainstorming, (ii) prototypes (iii)modeling and lastly, (iv) construction.

As the building of a trebuchet was not a normal activity carriedout by students, a good deal of research was necessary. Theclass used films such as “Gladiator” and “Lord of the Rings” forideas and also researched using Youtube and Wikipedia. Plansfor the building of a trebuchet were found at the following sitehttp://gottatopic.com/blueprint-for-a-trebuchet/. Howeverthe main design came from Jerry Tchadie Fuentes and IgnacioSoriano Diaz and their students who constructed one for theMadrid Science Fair http://www.madrimasd.org/experimentawiki/feria/La_ciencia_de_las_catapultas

The students were broken into groups and asked to construct amodel of their trebuchet. The best aspects of the models were

combined into a final design. Students also conductedinvestigations on thestrength of a wooden plank(lollipop stick) on its edgecompared to on the flat.Because the woodworkingskills were limited in thegroup, it was decided to usenuts and bolts for the pinningtogether of the structure.This also eases the problemof storage after the projectwas finished (a flat pack withattitude).

As part of their homeworkthe students also had toconstruct a simple sling shot and find the speed of theprojectile as it left the weapon. The speed calculations weredone using video motion analysis in “LoggerPro” .

The final part of the project was completed by 12 of the TYstudents as their main end-of-term project. They used acounter weight consisting of 10 kgs of water tied on in 2litreplastic bottles. Total construction time of trebuchet itself 6 hrsapprox. The projectile used was a small mini football weighing0.5 kg and on firing travelled to a height of 10m and a distanceof 30m approx.

The project was a great success and as a finale to the TYgraduation night the students fired the trebuchet in front oftheir parents and peers. Future projects with the trebuchet are • The effect of changing the size of the counterweight on

projectile distance or speed• The effect of changing the sling length on projectile distance

or speed.• The effect of changing the release position on projectile

distance or speed.

The construction of a Trebuchet A project by Transition Year students in Ard Scoil Rís

Back:G O'Donaghue, L Maycock, K Fogarty, R Richardson, M Cassidy, G Murtagh, P McDunphy

Front: D Costelloe, D Stacey, D Wade, M Kenny, S Tone


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Lucan Studentsreach finals ofPlanet SciCastDeclan Doherty, St Joseph’s College, Lucan, Co Dublin

In December 2007, a group of my Transition Year Physicsstudents entered the Physics category of the Planet SciCastcompetition. This is the first year that the Planet SciCastcompetition has been held and the Physics category, which issponsored by the Institute of Physics, is open to schools inIreland and the UK. Entrants were required to make a twoand a half-minute video explaining a Physics topic in anentertaining way.

Using our school camcorder, I thought it would be aninteresting project for my Transition Year students. So aftersome initial brainstorming, we decided to explain theconstruction and operation of a simple model of a car’scentral locking mechanism, which the students had made inclass two months previously, using a straw, a paperclip, abattery and a length of wire.

We shot the footage for the film during the two weeksbefore the Christmas holidays. None of us had any previousexperience of making a film, so we learnt a lot from theexperience and had great fun in the process. All of the actingand filming was done by the students.

We edited the film using Windows Movie Maker. When weput all the video clips together as we had planned them, thefilm was seven minutes long. We had to edit a lot of theplanned storyline so that the film length was the required 2.5minutes.

We posted the film in advance of the January deadline and inMarch, we were notified that we had won our regional final,which included the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.Each Institute of Physics regional winner becomes a nomineefor the final and is invited to attend the Awards ceremony inLondon.

Initially we were unsure of whether to take the girls over toLondon but Intel very generously offered to providesponsorship for the journey. Thus seven girls made the tripto London accompanied by myself and another scienceteacher, Ms Dunne.

The Planet SciCast awards ceremony was a very excitingaffair. The organisers, keen to have as much publicity aspossible for the first SciCast Awards, had notified theregional media stations. The girls were delighted to findthat RTE’s London correspondent, Brian O’Connell had comewith a cameraman to do an article on the event. The prize-giving ceremony was like a mini-Academy Awards, withpreviews of all the nominated films, and speeches by thewinning teams. Although the girls didn’t win their category,they appeared on the 9pm and 11pm RTE news that eveningand in several local media publications.

There is a link to the video that the girls made and also tothe RTE news bulletin on the school’s web sitewww.stjosephslucan.ie

I would highly recommend the competition. Making thevideo was educational, team building and great fun. It’s notnecessary to have good quality video equipment, as some ofthe nominated videos were made using mobile phonecameras.

The photo shows the girls at the SciCast Awards with RTE’s London Correspondent, Brian O’Connell and a film-still of the central locking model on which the

girls based their film.

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McKinsey Report 2007 based

on the PISA findings

Internationalcomparisons, such as

the OECD’s Programme forInternational Student Assessment

(PISA) make it possible to now regularlyand directly compare the quality of educational

outcomes across the education systems.

Science was the focus in 2006, but test data were also gatheredon reading and mathematical literacy of 15-year-olds.Students in 57 countries (including all 30 OECD countries)took part in the assessment, which was implemented inIreland in March/April 2006. Ireland ranked 14th out of the30 OECD countries and 20th out of the 57 participatingcountries in Science.

McKinsey, a consultancy that advises companies andgovernments—has boldly gone where educationalists havemostly never gone into policy recommendations based on thePISA findings. The report is the result of research carried outby McKinsey & Company between May 2006 and March2007. Its objective has been to understand why the world’stop-performing school systems perform so much better thanmost others and why some education reforms succeed sospectacularly, when most others fail.

Changing what happens in the hearts and minds of millionsof children- the main charge of any school system- is nosimple task. That some do so successfully while others do notis indisputable. So why is it that some school systemsconsistently perform better and improve faster than others?

There are many different ways to improve a school system,and the complexity of this task and the uncertainty aboutoutcomes is rightly reflected in the international debate abouthow this should best be done. To find out why some schoolssucceed where others do not, McKinsey studied twenty fiveof the world’s school systems, including ten of the topperformers. They examined what these high-performingschool systems have in common and what tools they use toimprove student outcomes.

The experience of these top school systems suggeststhat three things matter most:

1. Getting the right people to become teachers

2. Developing them into effective instructors

3. Ensuring that the system is able to deliver the best possible instruction for every child.

The top-performing school systems consistently attract moreable people into the teaching profession, leading to betterstudent outcomes. They do this by making entry to teachertraining highly selective, developing effective processes forselecting the right applicants to become teachers, and payinggood (but not great) starting compensation. Getting theseessentials right drives up the status of the profession,enabling it to attract even better candidates.

The quality of a school system rests on the quality of itsteachers. A South Korean policy maker is explicit about theimportance of getting good people into teaching ‘Thequality of an educational system cannot exceedthe quality of its teachers’. In the United States, studiesshow that ‘a teacher’s level of literacy, as measured by vocabularyand other standardised tests, affects student achievement more thanany other measurable teacher attribute’.

The top-performing school systems recognise that the onlyway to improve outcomes is to improve instruction: learningoccurs when students and teachers interact, and thus toimprove learning implies improving the quality of thatinteraction. They have understood which interventions areeffective in achieving this – coaching classroom practice,moving teacher training to the classroom, developingstronger school leaders, and enabling teachers to learn fromeach other – and have found ways to deliver theseinterventions throughout their school system. The quality ofthe outcomes for any school system is essentially the sum ofthe quality of the instruction that its teachers deliver.

Singapore used its National Institute of Education to deliverhigh-quality professional development to its teachingworkforce. ‘You can have the best curriculum, the bestinfrastructure, and the best policies, but if you don’t have goodteachers then everything is lost. We provide our teachers with 100hours of professional development each year… If you do not haveinspired teachers, how can you have inspired students?’

Getting the right people to become teachers and developingthem into effective instructors gives school systems thecapacity they need to deliver the improved instruction thatleads to improved outcomes. High-performing schoolsystems go further than this and put in place processes whichare designed to ensure that every child is able to benefit fromthis increased capacity. These systems set high expectationsfor what each and every child should achieve, and thenmonitor performance against the expectations, interveningwhenever they are not met. High-performing school systemsconstruct effective interventions at the level of the school,identifying schools that are not performing satisfactorily, andintervening to raise the standard of performance. The verybest systems intervene at the level of the individual student,



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developing processes and structures within schools that areable to identify whenever a student is starting to fall behind,and then intervening to improve that child’s performance.

A combination of monitoring and effective intervention isessential in ensuring that good instruction is deliveredconsistently across the system. High-performing schoolsystems monitor their performance through examinationsand inspections, making the intensity of this monitoringinversely proportional to the capacity of individual schools toimprove by themselves. They use the results of themonitoring to inform effective interventions to raisestandards and achieve a uniformly high performance. Thebest systems take these processes inside schools, constantlyevaluating student performance and constructinginterventions to assist individual students in order to preventthem from falling behind.

These systems demonstrate that the best practise forachieving these three things work irrespective of the culturein which they are applied. They demonstrate that substantialimprovement is possible in a short period of time and thatapplying these best practices universally could haveenormous impact in improving failing school systems,wherever they might be located.

For more details visithttp://www.mckinsey.com/clientservice/socialsector/resources/pdf/Worlds_School_Systems_Final.pdf

PharmaChemical Ireland, a sector within IBEC, this year announcedthe Industry Awards for Science Teaching Excellence. Science is thelifeblood of the Irish economy and a constant supply of high qualitygraduates is needed to maintain these essential industries sodependant on science, especially in the exigent times our economyfaces in the future.

Dr. James Ring, Education Executive with PharmaChemical Irelandsaid, “The industry awards are aimed at teachers, in their firstyear out of college, who have demonstrated an ability to go theextra mile to make the teaching of science more interesting andrelevant, and enthusing the students, increasing the pool studyingscience at 3rd level”.

The awards were presented at the Irish Science TeachersAssociation (ISTA) annual conference in Letterkenny. There are 16award winners selected from the 7 colleges of education around thecountry, with the overall winner picked at the event by a panel ofexperts in the field. Each award is worth €2000 and is sponsored byone of the member companies within PharmaChemical Ireland, the overall winner, Fiona Rooney from NUIM,received a prize worth €5000 including a laptop computer and lifetime membership of the ISTA. The sixteen winnerseach received €900, a data projector and membership of the ISTA for ten years.

Dr. Ring added, “industry has always recognised the critical importance of science teachers, in the important rolethey play in enthusing our young minds to study science. It is hoped that these awards, along with the large amountof work PharmaChemical Ireland is involved in with the ISTA, highlights the industries support of the scienceteachers now, and into the future”.

The winners were:Kenneth Byrne DCU Schering Plough Colin Hogg NUIM ICDAMichelle Finnegan UL Merck Sharpe and Dohme Julie Gleeson UCC NovartisErin Keogh UCC Gilead Cork Deirdre Kilbane UCD GenzymeDeirdre King NUIM Roche David Lane UCC PfizerBronagh Mullen TCD Gilead Dublin Sarah Mulvey DCU TakedaDearbhla Nolan NUIM GSK Ciara O’Driscoll UCD WyethJames O’Shaughnessy UL Schwartz Pharma Fiona Rooney * NUIM JanssenAoife Ryan UL GE Healthcare Emmet Sheridan TCD IVAX/TEVA

For further details, please contact Dr. James Ring at [email protected] or 086 381 6048

Industry Rewards Top Science Teachers

In the picture are (back row, L-R):Bronagh Mullen, Julie Gleeson, ErinKeogh, Deirdre Kilbane, Emmet Sheridan, Michelle Finnegan, James

O’Shaughnessy, Aoife Ryan, Ciara O’Driscoll, Dearbhla NolanIn the front are: Karla Lawless, ISTA President; Dr. James Ring,

Education Executive, PharmaChemical Ireland; Fiona Rooney, winner ofthe top award; and Seamus Ó Donghaile,ISTA Chairman


More Physics For Your EuroJohn Murphy, CBS SecondarySchool, Dungarvan, Co. Waterford.([email protected])

The 3 Euro ExperimentMost towns and cities have a €2shop and, on a recent visit to one Ipurchased a very simple laser for€2.99. What was very attractiveabout this laser was that itproduced a line of light rather thana spot. The specifications statedthat the wavelength had a range625 – 670 nm.

Having already used an expensive piece of equipment to measurethe wavelength of light with my Leaving Cert. class, I lookedforward to revisiting the same experiment using such aninexpensive laser.

The diffraction grating we usedhad 300 lines per mm. So we setup a screen with a metre stickacross it and placed the gratingabout one metre from the screenbefore turning on the laser.Another attraction of this laser isthat you don’t have to keep the button pressed (as in the spotlaser). You can turn it on and off, simply by pressing a button. Wethen moved the metre stick to fix the central order at the 50 cmmark, located the other orders and noted their positions on themetre stick.

We subsequently measured the distance from the first orderimage on the left (31.9 cm mark) to the first order image on theright (68.3 cm mark).

n = 12x = 0.364 mx = 0.182 md = 3.33 x 10

-6m

D = 0.908 m

λ = dx

nD= 667 nm

Ice and Two Spheres

This demonstration isquite easy to set, up butcan be a littletroublesome toimplement successfully.The block of ice isplaced on a poorthermal conductor, suchas a piece of woodwhich in turn is placedon a large tray.

A black metal ball and ashiny metal ball arethen placed on the topsurface of the block.Just above the surface, aheat spot lamp (200 W)is placed.The two ballswill after a time sinkinto the block of ice andthe black one shouldsink more quickly thanthe shiny one.

There are a number of physics concepts involved in thisdemonstration, but the main one I’d like to highlight is the greaterabsorption of energy by a black body. The two spheres have to begood conductors and painting metal balls with white and blackpaint might not be the most satisfactory in terms of achieving thedesired result. Anodized surfaces work quite well. Eskimos, Ibelieve, used this technique to drill holes in ice for fishing.However, instead of a black ball, I believe that they used dogdung.

Investigating Infra-red with a TV remoteIn the electromagnetic spectrum, infra-red light is below the redend of the spectrum of visible light. It has lower frequency, longerwavelength and less energy per photon than red light. Humaneyes cannot see infra-red light, because its wave length of950nm, is below the visible spectrum. That's one of the reasonswhy IR is chosen for remote control purposes, we want to use itbut we're not interested in seeing it. Another reason is because IRLEDs are quite easy to make, and therefore can be very cheap.

Although we humans can't see the Infra-Red light emitted from aremote control, we can still make it visible. A video camera or digital photo camera can "see" the Infra-Redlight as you can see in this picture. Point your remote towards adigital camera, press any button and you'll see the LED flicker onthe camera screen.

There are many more sources of Infra-Red light. The sun is thebrightest source of all, but there are many others, like: light bulbs,candles, central heating systems, and even our body radiatesInfra-Red light. In fact everything that radiates heat, also radiatesInfra-Red light.

Note: Infra-red lightspans a large range offrequencies andwavelengths. It iscommonly dividedinto near infra-redand far infra-red. Thenear infra-red is close to red light. The TV remote control works inthe near infra-red. Thermal cameras like those that you see inscience museums work in the far infra-red. They show the infra-red light emitted by warm objects.

€3 Laser

Interference pattern on metre stick

2 spheres initially

Remote

2 spheres later

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New Teaching and LearningModular Course forScience Teachers

The SLSS Science Support Services are collaboratingto develop a Modular Course for colleagues who wishto explore Active Science Teaching and LearningStrategies. The course will include sessions on thescience of learning, applying modern strategiesfor assessment and learning and the use of avirtual learning environment to learn andexchange classroom methodologies.

Participants will also be encouraged to conduct anaction research project during the duration of thecourse. The course will involve two full course daysabout 6-8 weeks apart, during school time, with avirtual learning environment experience in between.

The first such course is organised for the CorkEducation Support Centre on Tuesday December 16,2008. Day 2 is arranged for Friday March 6, 2009.

If you are interested in participating please contactthe SLSS Chemistry and Physics Co-ordinators or visithttp://chemistry.slss.ie or http://physics.slss.ie


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Science Website Resourceshttp://webphysics.iupui.edu/webscience/physics_archive.html Under the heading Class Material Archive is "WIPGF" What is Physics Good For? This is a resource ofarticles written by students studying under Dr. Andrew D. Gavrin, Indiana University, Indianapolis. Thearticles are intended to motivate others to see how the physics we study is relevant to our everydayexperiences. They are relevant to the LC physics syllabus and give a lot of STS information and couldbe useful for project work.

http://www.schoolphysics.co.uk/ This is the website for both students and teachers of Physics whether studied as a single subject or aspart of a combined science course. It offers definitions, explanations, diagrams, experiments andproblems. All free, courtesy of Keith Gibbs.

http://www.squashedfrogs.co.uk/ This website is for science teachers to search for resources, lesson plans, web links and files to help withtheir teaching. Initially set up for Oxford Brookes Science PGCE students by the PGCE students, anyonecan download anything on this site for free. It also includes a comprehensive page on relevant links.

Lisa Ryan, Loreto High School, Rathfarnham, D14

Transition YearAstronomy Module !

A collaboration with Physics teachers, ScienceFoundation Ireland, and the Physics Department inUCC has recently launched a new Transition YearModule in Astronomy. This is designed to last 1-2terms, and is based on a series of "hands-on"demos and practicals for the students to carry out.No prior knowledge of astronomy is required.

Teachers are encouraged to use the online versionat http://astro.ucc.ie/TY_AstronomyModule/Teachers can navigate through the Module byusing the sidebar. The online version of the Modulecontains live links to many useful websites, andpurpose-built PowerPoint presentations teacherscan use in the classroom.

You are invited to leave feedback on this Module,and to contact Dr Paul Callanan ([email protected])with any (hopefully constructive !) comments.


Ireland has the second-highestproportion of scientists and engineers inthe EU, according to new figures fromEurostat. The 2008 edition of Eurostat’sScience, Technology and Innovation inEurope revealed 4.8pc of the EU’s labourforce comprises scientists or engineers. Thehighest shares of scientists and engineerswere found in Belgium (7.9pc), Ireland(6.8pc), Finland (6.7pc), Sweden (6.5pc) andDenmark (6.0pc), with the lowest shares inPortugal (2.7pc), Bulgaria, Austria and Slovakia

(all 3pc).Despite these findings, experts believe Ireland faces adeficit in engineering, science and technology talent in theyears ahead as the number of school leavers opting for careersin these sectors has waned.

On May 22, 2008 against a monumental backdrop of badpublicity for cold fusion since 1989 when Martin Fleischmann ofthe University of Southampton, UK, and Stanley Pons of theUniversity of Utah, US, announced that they had observedcontrolled nuclear fusion in a glass jar at room temperature,researchers in Japan have demonstrated the production ofexcess heat and helium-4, the results of an historic low-energynuclear reaction experiment. The mastermind behind thedemonstration is Yoshiaki Arata, a highly respected physicist inJapan who has been the recipent of Japan's highest award, theOrder of Cultural Merit.

For more details visithttp://physicsworld.com/blog/2008/05/coldfusion_demonstration_a_suc_1.html

The contention that humans "only" employ 10 percent of their brain isso wrong it is almost laughable, says neurologist Barry Gordon at JohnsHopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore. What is correct, however, isthat at certain moments in anyone's life, such as when we are simplyat rest and thinking, we may be using only 10 percent of our brains.“The brain is active almost all the time," Gordon adds. "Let's put it thisway: the brain represents three percent of the body's weight and uses20 percent of the body's energy."

It has been debated for nearly four decades but no one has yet beenable to prove it is chemically possible. Now good evidence suggests thatbirds can actually "see" the lines of the Earth's magnetic field. It hasbeen proposed that the primary magnetoreceptor in the avian retina isa photoactive protein known as cryptochrome. For more visithttp://www.chem.ox.ac.uk/researchguide/pjhore.html

In May 2008, IBM announced it has made a research breakthrough inphotovoltaics technology that could reduce the cost of harnessingsolar power for electricity. Using a large lens to concentrate the sun’spower, IBM researchers are able to capture a record 230 watts onto acentimetre square solar cell, in a technology known as concentratorphotovoltaics (CPV). That energy is then converted into 70 watts ofusable electrical power, about five times the electrical power densitygenerated by typical cells using CPV technology in solar farms.

Did you know• that Isaac Newton originally defined force as the rate of

change of momentum with respect to time?• that the impact of a raindrop would be fatal if not for the

notion of terminal velocity?• that a moonbow, or night-time rainbow, can be seen on

strongly-moonlit nights?

Physical Science News 2008

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TY Science is Spicing up the Serious StuffFinding the time to create classroom resources can be a sticky issuefor some science teachers but help is at hand. Until now it was up toinnovative teachers in schools to come up with their own ideas for TYscience. However, the Second Level Support Service (SLSS) is nowoffering a wide range of new resources for teachers.

"Teachers pretty much have an open brief in TY but finding the timeto create resources can be difficult. I have tried to combine solidscientific education with the personal development aims of the year.So far the response has been very positive. There are several differentresource projects available and the SLSS is also providing one-dayworkshops nationwide for interested teachers" explains coursedesigner, Anna M Walsh.

The ‘Inspiration for Science Teachers’ resource pack consists of eightindependent modules offering a wide variety of activities. Eachmodule comes with full instructions, photocopy materials and a disc ofanimated PowerPoint presentations. Medical Physics, for example, is aPowerPoint presentation which explains how scanning techniques - PETscans, MRI scans etc - are used in modern medicine. The presentationis animated, with a full script explaining how the procedures work. "Itis designed to be student friendly," says Walsh. "There are smallquizzes throughout, which stop the presentation at various points.This way, it is broken up and is not all about looking up at a screen,which can get very boring. It has been well received by teachers acrossthe board."

Most of the modules aredesigned to fit into oneteaching unit (i.e. one class)to enable maximumflexibility. "TY is differentfor each school," says Walsh."With some schools doingblocks of science in oneterm and others spreading itout over the year, there canbe a variety of timeconstraints. So it has allbeen designed to be veryflexible."

A number of one-dayworkshops were organizedfor Spring 2008 and moremay be offered during thisschool year. All the resourcesare free.

For more details contact Mary Sorohan SLSS, Blackrock EducationCentre, Dublin, tel: 01-2365023, or e-mail [email protected]

www.slss.iewww.slss.ie

Homepage http://chemistry.slss.ie/ The homepage contains

information on chemistry supportcourses available and other

events of interest.


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You are invited to share some of your comments by emailing them to

[email protected]

The registration page allows you to enter your contact details, for the SLSS national

chemistry database. This will ensure that you are notified ofsupport courses by email and that you are forwarded

relevant resources.Have you registered yet?

We thank all who contributed articles for thisissue and invite you to submit comments on ourwebsite forum to let us know what you think.

Developing a Formative ClassroomDr Susan Burr email: [email protected]

reluctant members. Questioning in our classroom shouldn’tbe like an exam, they get plenty of summative assessment.How do we do that prior knowledge check? There is no hardand fast set of rules, so try out ideas, see what works, findout what suits you and your pupils.

Checking prior knowledge is often done through the use ofclosed questions to check facts, questions such as : Who was? What is? List 3 Other examples of thisare….What facts would you select to show……Function ofthis is ….

No hands up – this can be difficult especially if they use itwith other teachers and even more if you have them sittingwaiting to answer. You can choose individual pupils by namebut this may not help the less self confident pupils. For thesepupils, panic can set in, the adrenalin starts running andanything they might have known goes straight out of theirheads. What do we do if the pupil doesn’t know the answer,do we move on or persist?

So what strategies can we employ to give pupils a chance tothink, gather their thoughts or talk over an idea.

1. Working with a partner: a. Answering closed questions with partner but noting

those you don’t know and those you are not sure about

b. Making up closed questions and passing them to another group to answer

Both 1a, b can be followed by group or class discussionallowing the teacher to focus on misunderstandings.

2. Individuals working on their own, gives time to answer aquestion whose answer can be written down and shown toa partner or group. This can be followed by class and teacher discussion.

3. Simple card exercises for example: matching words and their definitions or adding labels to a diagram. These canbe done on a pair or individual basis


Formative assessment is about good teaching and learning,supporting pupils to become reflective and helping themtake responsibility for their own learning. There are anumber of issues that are necessary to developing aformative classroom.

Good classroom dialogue is essential, developinga range of questions, peer and self evaluation,promoting discussion and sharing planning.

As teachers, we know that good planning is essential and weneed to share this with our pupils. If they don’t know whatthey should be learning or what are the success criteria thenthey are going to find it much more difficult to achieveanything in the lesson. It is also important that when wehave decided on the objectives of a lesson that we arecritical about the activity we are going to do and that thissupports the learning outcome.

We often assume that we are the only person in theclassroom who can assess or evaluate a piece of work so wefail to involve our pupils in either self or peer evaluation.This can be simple checking of knowledge but can be verypowerful if used to explain more difficult ideas. I am surethat we can all recall a situation where we have onlyunderstood something when we had to explain it to someoneelse. Both techniques are not easy and require an element ofreflection so if pupils are to benefit they must be givenpractice and support.

This article will focus on questioning, look at linkingformative techniques with summative assessments anddiscuss some ideas for integrating a range of thesetechniques to develop a formative classroom.

Question and AnswerWe’ve all done it, we know we need to check what theyremember from the last lesson, last week or even last year.We ask a question, there is that silence, we are encouraging‘wait time’. Nobody says anything, pupils look away, theyare waiting for that ‘Hermione moment’. She always knowsthe answer and enthusiastically puts her hand up, in spite of

the no hands up rule. If ournerve breaks and we chooseher then you can hear thecollective sigh of relief. Sheknows the answer but whatabout the rest of the class?Questions are a vitallyimportant part of classroomdialogue (Chris Harrison, PSM2005 ). We all know that, buthow do we use appropriatequestions and moreimportantly how do we involveall the members of our class inthe response, even the most

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Techniques 1 and 2 take more time than a more traditionalquestion and answer session while 3 can often be muchquicker. In all these activities a time limit that keeps pupilson task is helpful, this will need to be adjusted according tothe classes age and abilities.

What about exploring more difficult ideas, complexinteractions, abstract concepts or checking formisconceptions. Open questions are much more useful, theycan check understanding but also be able to probe formisunderstandings.

Questions such as: Why is process important? What is theconnection between…? Can you explain….These questions need thought and are better plannedbefore the class. It is also helpful to have a clear idea ofwhere you would like the discussion to go, so some followup questions are useful. However, you need to be able tothink on your feet and make decisions about each pupil’scontribution as Chris Baker (PSM 2004) says that the halfright /half wrong answers are the most challenging.

In terms of organisation the more thinking time the betterso it can be useful to pose the question at the end of theprevious lesson or to have some group talk before a generalclassroom discussion.

Another rich source of information for class discussion is theresults produced by pupils from their experimental work.Often we have a picture in our head of the right answer butexploring the unexpected (not wrong please) answer can aidunderstanding.

Seven groups working on an experiment produce one set ofresults not as expected. This immediately shows pupils whyreplication is essential, it also allows the exploration of fairtesting, did that group do something different , did differentpeople record the results for instance.

Linking formative and summativeassessment In the middle and upper secondary school life can bedominated by summative assessment and the need for pupilsto perform in external examinations. How do we continue touse formative techniques to support pupils, to encouragethem to take responsibility for their own learning and helpthem to achieve in their exams?

It is essential that they use active not passive strategies, tolearn and retain information the brain must processinformation. Copying out notes or model answers merelyinvolves short term memory and is unlikely to allowinformation to be processed and retained.

Pupils will, of course, have different learning styles andpreferred methods of doing revision so using a wide rangewill allow them to pick those that they find the most useful.The suggestions below can be done on an individual, groupor class basis, some techniques lend themselves better toone type of grouping than another.

• Making up questions and marking schemes• Analysing questions • Analysing wrong answers• Explaining to others wrong/right answers• Discussion • Mind/concept maps• Matching exercises for classifying, checking definitions

etc. • Compare and contrast• Graphic organisers• Bulleted lists• Diagrams to label or explain• Flow diagrams for processes• Poems and songs

Moving forwardDeveloping a total formative classroom is the challengingpart. It is easy to try out and use individual techniques butembedding the overall ideas into all your teaching is muchmore difficult. Many of these techniques take time, so it isessential to look at all the activities you are carrying out,you may need to leave out something, don’t always add.

Paul Black divides teachers into 4 categories Expert: formative assessment strategies embedded in andintegrated with practiceMoving pioneers: confident with two or more strategiesand looking for others to useStatic pioneers: successful with a few techniques andsticking with thoseTriallers: who had tried out a few techniques but had notembedded them in their practice

Which are you? As with many teaching initiatives it can quite easily becomea ‘ticky box’ exercise.‘I am sharing learning outcomes, using open questions,therefore I have a formative classroom’. It requires achange of perspective to move from pioneer to expert.There are a number of issues. How do you use what you have learnt about the pupilsknowledge and skills to plan your next steps? How do you use the techniques where appropriate? Manyneed time so when do you use which?How do you structure your lesson?How do you support your pupils in the use of thesetechniques? Self and peer evaluation needs practice. It iseasier for pupils if they have been using similar techniquesin other subjects.


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Help can come from colleagues, it is always much easy tochange classroom practice if other teachers are thinkingalong similar lines. Also, discussion with colleagues is good,problems are often the same in different subjects, asolution in English may help in Science!!!

As an experienced teacher you may well be already usingsome of the techniques mentioned but I hope that theremay be some ideas that you can adapt and incorporate intoyour own teaching. Finally, we get to be better teachers bybeing self reflective so hopefully this article and thequestions posed will help you to think about your ownpractice.

Useful references (books and websites)Assessment for Learning Putting it into practice Paul Black,Christine HarrisonISBN 0335212972 Open University Press

Science inside the black box, assessment for learning in thescience classroom, Paul Black, Christine Harrison ISBN 0708714447 nfer Nelson

Formative Assessment in the secondary classroom, ShirleyClarke ISBN 0340887664 Hodder Murray

Assessment is for Learning AifLAssessment for learning: supporting learning and teachingAssessment as learning: learning how to learnAssessment of learning: gathering and interpreting evidencehttp://www.ltscotland.org.uk/assess/for/index.asp

Association of Assessment, Inspectors and Advisorshttp://www.aaia.org.uk

National curriculum in action; KS3 pupil materialshttp://www.ncaction.org.uk

New Zealand teaching organisation, teaching and learninghttp://www.tki.org.nzhttp://www.tki.org.nz/r/assessment/one/formative_e.phpPresentations on :teacher-student conversations; givingquality feedback; self and peer assessment

Teachers TV; good range of videos on FA techniqueshttp://www.teachers.tv

Dr Susan Burr [email protected],[email protected] in Science EducationAssociate Lecturer in Science Education, University ofStrathclydeFormerly Principal Teacher, Kyle Academy, Ayr

New Teacher Network Co-ordinator for Institute of Physics appointed

David Keenahan from Gonzaga College in Dublin has been appointed as a Teacher NetworkCo-ordinator for Ireland. He joins Paul Nugent and Sue McGrath, co-ordinator for NorthernIreland.

The Teacher Network was established by the Institute of Physics with the aim to providesupport for those involved with the teaching of physics in schools. The IOP works incollaboration with partners such as the SLSS (Second Level Support Service) to help developa community for physics teachers.

Quite often, physics teachers feel isolated if they are the only physics teacher in their schoolor if they have only very occasional contact with physics teachers in other schools. A primary purpose of the networkis to develop links between physics teachers. In support of this aim the IOP seeks to provide support, and usefulresources and to encourage the sharing of both by teachers.

David Keenahan comes to the role with many years of experience of teaching Physics, Maths and Applied Maths. Heis a graduate of U.C.D. and for his Masters Degree (TCD, 2003) he explored the potential of Datalogging in Physics.He has produced several web resources for the Teachnet project, chiefly in the area of Modern Physics (for LeavingCert.) www.teachnet.ie He is particularly enthusiastic about the benefits of multimedia in communicating physicsconcepts to students. He is also a strong believer in the value of using the common-or-garden version of equipmentwhenever possible.

His hopes for the IOP Teacher Network include:• developing further the links between teachers,• developing more useful resources and ways to share them,• developing the potential of mentoring so that the wisdom of age can merge with the enthusiasm of youth.

David Keenahan may be contacted at; [email protected] www.iopireland.org

Teachers Network


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www.slss.iewww.slss.ie

Homepage http://physics.slss.ie/ The homepage contains

information on physics supportcourses available and other

events of interest.

The registration page allows you to enter your contact details, for the SLSS national

physics database. This will ensure that you are notified ofsupport courses by email and that you are forwarded

relevant resources.Over 100 physics teachers registered online last

year, Did You?

These exemplars have been tried, tested, evaluated and modified by colleagues in

their classrooms. Thanks to them for sharing their work and for making them available for you to download and customise

in your own physics teaching. They are to be used foreducational purposes only.

I invite you to share some of your evaluated exemplars by emailing them to

[email protected]

Log on now for a wealth of downloadable resources

We thank all who contributed articles forthis issue and invite you to submit

comments on our website forum to let usknow what you think.


Physics Support September - December 2008

Leaving Certificate PhysicsPhysics support will focus on providing courses and resources to enhance the classroom learning and teaching of physics at senior cycle. This will include Modular Courses, Induction Courses, a limited number of school visits undertaken on request as well as regional support meetings.

A consultation service by fax, phone or email will be available. Further support will be offered through the magazine“Physical Sciences” and the website http://physics.slss.ie

Local MeetingsA series of local meetings will take place in Autumn 2008. Thesewill support local identified needs and be organised in partnershipwith Education Centres (EC) and in collaboration with the IrishScience Teachers’ Association and the Institute of Physics. Furtherdetails will be provided locally. If you wish to be informed by emailof meetings planned for your area please register athttp://physics.slss.ie/register.html

Website

http://physics.slss.ie Here you will find details of all upcoming support events. Thewebsite also contains new downloadable teaching resources, whichwill be continually updated. Upon logging on please register andleave a comment on the discussion forum where experiences,queries and resources can be shared.

Magazine

Two issues of the Physical Sciences magazine will be produced thisyear. One will be forwarded to schools in September 2008 and theother in January 2009.

If you have tried different teaching techniques or come acrossuseful classroom resources you are invited to contribute to thenext issue of the magazine, please forward your article [email protected]

Physics Support for Senior Cycle • Modular Courses

- Induction Course for Physics Teachers- Using ICT to enhance the Teaching and Learning of Physics- Múinteoirí fisice atá ag múineadh trí mhéan na Gaeilge- Flash Animations in Classroom Physics

• Physics Datalogging Induction Courses• Leaving Certificate Physics Experiments Workshop• Physics Networks

Course Implementing Current Teaching and Learning strategies into the Science Classroom

This modular course is being run in conjunction with the Physics,Biology and Junior Science Support Services. It will focus onmodern strategies to improve Teaching and Learning based on howthe brain learns.Venue Dates

Cork Education Support Centre 16-12-08 and 06-03-09

Course Induction Course for Physics Teachers

Target Group: Physics teachers new to the profession and teachersof physics new to the revised Leaving Certificate syllabus

Learning Outcomes: On successful completion of this course, participants should be able to:• Apply the structure and content of the physics syllabus, the

teacher guidelines and the support starter pack• Identify and investigate best practice in laboratory management• Choose effective teaching methods, such as Assessment for

Learning, for communicating physics• Demonstrate practical hands-on experience with all the

experiments listed in the syllabus• Discuss and reflect on their own teaching and share experiences

and useful resources with colleagues• Undertake some action research in teachers' own work

situations, reflect on practice and document the outcomes.

Venue Dates Closing date

Cork Education 24-09-08 and 6-11-08 15-09-08Support Centre Further day in 2009

Dublin West 08-10-08 and 14-11-08 26-09-08Education Centre Further day in 2009

Galway Education 15-10-08 and 28-11-08 03-10-08Centre Further day in 2009

Course Flash Animations in Classroom Physics

Target Group: Teachers of Physics at second level who havecompleted a physics ICT course and who are interested in exploringthe added value of using flash in the classroom.

Learning Outcomes: On successful completion of this course,participants should be able to:• Apply learning strategies with Flash Animations to engage the

learner• Construct practical ideas and strategies for communicating physics• Develop experiential teaching skills to enhance teaching and

learning in a differentiated classroom• Evaluate how Flash Animations could support Assessment for

Learning strategies• Support networking between teachers of physics• Undertake some action research in teachers’ own work



Cork 23-10-08 and 11-02-09 10-10-08Education Centre

Galway 05-11-08 and 27-02-09 22-10-08Education Centre

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Course Using ICT to enhance the Teaching and Learning of Physics

Target Group: Teachers of Physics at second level

Learning Outcomes: On successful completion of this course,participants should be able to:• Choose learning strategies with ICT tools such as PowerPoint, CD-

ROMs, Internet Applets and Datalogging to engage the learner• Construct practical ideas and strategies for communicating

physics• Develop experiential teaching skills to enhance teaching and

learning in a differentiated classroom• Evaluate how ICT could support Assessment for Learning

strategies• Use online technology to share experiences of best practice with

the group• Support networking between teachers of physics• Undertake some action research in teachers’ own work



Blackrock 21-10-08 and 23-01-09 09-10-08Education Centre

Co. Wexford 11-11-08 and 22-01-09 24-10-08Education Centre

Laois Education Centre 20-11-08 and 06-02-09 07-11-08

Carrick on Shannon Education Centre 24-11-08 and 30-01-09 14-11-08

Athlone Education Centre 05-12-08 and 04-03-09 24-11-08

Cúrsa Teicneolaíocht an Eolais a úsáid chun chur le múineadh agus foghlaim na fisice

Spriocghrúpa: Múinteoirí Fisice atá ag múineadh trí mhéan naGaeilge.

Aidhm Cúrsa: Taréis dóibh an cúrsa seo a chríochniú beidh narannpháirtithe in ann:• Straitéis foghlama a roghniú ag úsáid uirlisí ICT cosúil le

Powerpoint, CD-ROManna, ‘Applets’ Idirlín agus Taifeadadh Sonraí chun aire an dalta a tharraingt.

• Straitéis agus modhanna praiticiúla a iniúchadh chun na fisice a chur in iúil.

• Scileanna teagaisc eispéireasach a fhorbairt chun chur leis an múineadh agus foghlaim sa rangsheomra dhifrithe.

• Conas is féidir Teicneolaíocht an Eolais a úsáid chun chur le straitéise Meastóireachta na Foghlaime a mheas.

• Taithí ar sárchleachtais a aithint agus a riaradh i measc an ghrúpa.• Gréasánú a thacú idir mhúinteoirí atá ag múineadh fisice trí

mhéan na Gaeilge.• Taighde gníomhaíochta a dhéanamh i rith obair laethiúil

múinteoirí, machnamh a dhéanamh ar chleachtais agus na torthaí a thaifeadadh.

Ionad Dáta Iarrataisí roimh

Ionad Oideacheas 28-11-08 14-11-08na Ghaillimhe

One day Workshops

Physics Datalogging Induction

A series of one day hands-on workshops on how datalogging canenhance practical work in physics has been organised. Twoworkshops will be offered in first term and further courses areplanned for the second term.

Learning Outcomes: On successful completion of this course,participants should be able to:• Identify experiments suitable for datalogging methodology• Perform experiments using their own datalogging equipment• Recognise the common mistakes• Analyse the data recorded in an experiment• Appreciate the added value of using datalogging.

Application forms may be downloaded from the physics section of the website http://physics.slss.ie

Venue Date Closing date

Carrick-on-Shannon Education Centre 14-11-08 04-11-08

Kildare Education Centre 05-12-08 21-11-08

Leaving Certificate Physics Experiments

A one day hands-on workshop on some of the Leaving Certificateexperiments has been organised in response to teacher requests.Application forms may be downloaded from the physics section ofthe website http://physics.slss.ie

Learning Outcomes: On successful completion of this course,participants should be able to:• Demonstrate and explain physics concepts such as velocity• Conduct the mandatory experiments using their own equipment• Compile the experimental procedure, measurements taken,

results obtained, etc.• Identify sources of error and assess experimental uncertainty• Analyse experimental results using graphical methods


UCG 30-09-08 19-09-08

Milltown, Co. Kerry 13-11-08 23-10-08

Application forms may be downloaded from the physics section ofthe website http://physics.slss.ie

Physics Labday DublinPhysics Labday Dublin


Chemistry Support September – December 2008

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Dear colleagues,The aim of the support service is to provide teachers with continuous professional development. The courses

on offer this year reflect the demand we receive from you the practicing teacher. However if you believethere is a need for support in a particular area please contact me or place a notice on the “forum” on our

website http://chemistry.slss.ie This year it is hoped to organise small local ‘clusters’ of teachers who can attend NetworkMeetings in their nearest Education Centre. We will be on hand to listen to your ideas and needs and respond accordingly. Ifyou do not personally receive information regarding courses and upcoming Network Meetings then send me your details byemail to [email protected] and I will place you on our database. There is much to gain by attending inservice coursesespecially as they are subject specific so please do try to attend a course in your local area.

Brendan Duane, National Coordinator

The following will take place in the upcoming terms• Modular courses:

- Induction - ICT for beginners - ICT advanced• Resource Day.• Datalogging• Laboratory management.• Network meetingsA consultation service is available at all times by fax, telephone oremail and messages may be posted on the forum on the website. Alimited number of school visits may be arranged on request. Phone 087 6375863. Fax 045 442521

Modular Courses

Course Induction Course for Teachers of Chemistry

Target Group• Teachers of Chemistry new to the

profession.• Teachers of Chemistry new to the revised

Leaving Certificate syllabus.• Teachers of Chemistry who feel they

need practical hands-on experience of the Mandatory Experiments.

On successful completion of this modular course teachers shouldbe able to:-• Understand the structure and content of the new chemistry

syllabus and the teacher guidelines. • Identify best practice in laboratory safety and management• Recognise and employ effective teaching methods for

communicating chemistry• Master the skills required to carry out a large range of

experiments listed in the syllabus• Participate successfully in a forum for teachers to reflect on

their own teaching and share experiences and useful resources• Prepare a case study on part of your teaching practice and

record your findings

This is a three day modular course and is available nationally atthe following venues:


NUI Maynooth 18th Sept 2008 and 18th Dec 08 11th Sept 08Further day in 2009

University 23rd Sept 2008 and 9th Dec 08 16th Sept 08of Limerick Further day in 2009

Athlone I.T. 15th Sept 2008 and 16th Dec 08 8th Sept 08Further day in 2009

Course Using IT in Chemistry Teaching. (Beginners)

Target Group• Chemistry Teachers at Senior Cycle.• Chemistry Teachers wishing to learn how

to develop PowerPoint presentations with little or no previous experience in same.

On successful completion of this modular course teachers shouldbe able to:-• Recognise and employ learning strategies with ICT tools such as

ChemSketch, PowerPoint, CD-ROMs, and Internet Applets which will engage the learner

• Explore practical ideas and strategies for communicating chemistry

• Master experiential teaching skills to enhance the teaching and learning in chemistry classrooms

• Explore and share experiences of best practice with the group• Support networking between chemistry teachers• Prepare PowerPoint presentations for each section of the

syllabus and share this resource with the participants.• Prepare a case study on part of your teaching practice and

record your findings.

This is a three day modular course and is available nationally atthe following venues:


Monaghan 30th Sept 08 and 15th Jan 2009 23rd Sept 08Education Centre

Drumcondra 2nd Oct 08 and 3rd Feb 2009 25th Sept 08Education Centre

West Cork 7th Oct 08 and 22nd Jan 2009 30th Sept 08Education Centre

Galway 9th Oct 08 and 27th Jan 2009 2nd Oct 08Education Centre

Mayo Education 14thOct 08 and 29th Jan 2009 7th Oct 08Centre

Kilkenny 16th Nov 08 and 20th Feb 2009 9th Nov 08Education Centre

Course Using IT in Chemistry Teaching. (Advanced)

Target Group• Chemistry teachers who have a working

knowledge of computers.• Chemistry teachers who have already

completed a beginners course in ICT.

On successful completion of this modular courseteachers should be able to:-

• Master the skills needed to employ video, animations and digital media in PowerPoint presentations.

• Prepare ICT resources for uploading to a website.• Propose approaches that could be made to the development of

ICT in classroom activities.

This is a three day modular course and is available nationally at thefollowing venues:


Kildare 21st Oct 08 and 10th Feb 2009 15th Oct 08Education Centre

Dublin West 4th Nov 08 and 5th Feb 2009 28th Sept 08Education Centre

Waterford 6th Nov 08 and 3rd Mar 2009 30th Sept 08Education Centre

Clare 11th Nov 08 and 12thFeb 2009 4th Nov 08Education Centre

Donegal Education 13th Nov 08 and 24th Feb 2009 6th Nov 08Centre

Tralee Education 4th Dec 08 and 5th Mar 2009 27th Nov 08Centre

4. Chemistry Resource DayAthlone Education Centre Nov. 22nd 2008This day will provide teachers with an opportunity tosee how various resources may be used in order toenhance the teaching of chemistry. Many resourceswill be demonstrated on the day. These will includeSoftware Applications, Animations, Books, ResourcePacks, Videos, PowerPoints, Electronic Worksheets

and many others. Participants will be invited to bring along anyresource they themselves use in class and to present a five minuteoverview of their product. If the demand is high for this course itmay be possible to organise an extra date. Please apply early asplaces are limited to size of IT room.

5.Datalogging Induction in ChemistryDublin School November 27th 2008 Limerick School December 2nd 2008 A series of one day hands-on workshops on howdatalogging can enhance practical work in chemistryhave been organised. You will be taken step by stepthrough the experiments and shown how to transfer

data to your computer for manipulation and print outs. Eachexperiment needs a minimum of preparation and can be easilycompleted inside a forty minute period. News of new productsavailable and the new version of Logger Pro will be demonstrated.Ten experiments suitable for Leaving Certificate Chemistry can besampled. In all three datalogging workshops will take place in thecoming year.

6.Laboratory management for Chemistry Teachers

Athlone Education Centre Nov. 25th 2008This one day course has been organised to meet the many requests from teachers for advice on best practice in laboratory management. Topicsincluded are Chemical Stock Control, ChemicalStorage, Safety in the Laboratory and Experimental

procedures and preparations. Advice will also be given on carryingout the Mandatory Experiments, and waste disposal. Please applyearly as places are limited.

Network Evening MeetingsFollowing on from thesuccess of these eveningcourses last year it is hopedto continue with them and to form small cluster groupsof teachers who will use themeetings as an opportunity

to share ideas, develop resources and identify areas of supportneeded. These workshops are organised in partnership with theEducation Centres and with the local branches of the ISTA.Notification of the dates of these initial meetings in your area willbe sent to you at your school. If you are not receiving personalnotification of courses then drop me an email with your details and I will add your name to our database. [email protected]

Website

The updated website may be found at www.slss.ie . Log on tothe Chemistry homepage. Here you will find details of all upcomingsupport events. You will also find a wealth of downloadableresources which will be continually updated. Upon logging on wewould appreciate if you could register with us and provide us with an email address. It is hoped in the near future to allow queries tobe posted on the Forum which we can follow up for you.

If you have any useful resources in electronic form that you wishyour fellow teachers to share send them to me [email protected] and I will have them uploaded onto thewebsite.

Magazine

The Physical Sciences magazine will be published and available inschools in September 2008. If you would like to contribute an articlefor inclusion in the magazine please send it to me [email protected] . If you have come across useful resources on the internet please share them with us.


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September 15, 2008Course: Induction Course for Chemistry Teachers Day 1Venue: Athlone I.T.

September 18, 008 Course: Induction Course for Chemistry Teachers Day 1Venue: NUI Maynooth

September 23, 2008 Course: Induction Course for Chemistry Teachers Day 1Venue: University of Limerick

September 24, 2008Course: Induction Course for Physics Teachers Day 1Venue: Cork Education Support Centre

September 27, 2008Course: Frontiers of Physics ConferenceVenue: University College Dublin

September 30, 2008Course: Leaving Certificate Physics ExperimentsVenue: University College Galway

September 30, 2008 Course: Using ICT in Chemistry Teaching. (Beginners) Day 1Venue: Monaghan Education Centre.

October 2, 2008 Course: Using ICT in Chemistry Teaching. (Beginners) Day 1Venue: Druncondra Education Centre

October 7, 2008 Course: Using ICT in Chemistry Teaching. (Beginners) Day 1Venue: West Cork Education Centre

October 8, 2008Course: Induction Course for Physics Teachers Day 1Venue: Dublin West Education Centre

October 9, 2008 Course: Using ICT in Chemistry Teaching. (Beginners) Day 1Venue: Galway Education Centre

October 14, 2008 Course: Using ICT in Chemistry Teaching. (Beginners) Day 1Venue: Mayo Education Centre

October 15, 2008Course: Induction Course for Physics Teachers Day 1Venue: Galway Education Centre

October 16, 2008 Course: Using ICT in Chemistry Teaching. (Beginners) Day 1Venue: Kilkenny Education Centre

October 17, 2008Course: Physics Tutor seminar Venue: Athlone Education Centre

October 18th 2008 Course: Chem-ed conference.Venue: Dublin City University.

October 21, 2008Course: Using ICT to Enhance the Teaching and Learning ofPhysics Day 1Venue: Blackrock Education Centre

October 21, 2008 Course: Using ICT in Chemistry Teaching. (Advanced) Day 1Venue: Kildare Education Centre

October 23Course: Flash Animations in the Physics Classroom Day 1Venue: Cork Education Support Centre

October 23-26, 2008Science on Stage Festival Berlin

Mid-term Break October 27 – October 31

November 4, 2008ChemEd-Ireland Conference.Venue: University College Cork.

November 4, 2008 Course: Using ICT in Chemistry Teaching. (Advanced) Day 1Venue: Dublin West Education Centre

November 5, 2008Course: Flash Animations in the Physics Classroom Day 1Venue: Galway Education Centre


Calendar of Events 2008-2009

December 18, 2008 Course: Induction Course for Chemistry Teachers Day 2Venue: NUI Maynooth Further day in 2009

Christmas Holidays December 23 – January 7

Jan 8-10, 2009ASE Annual Conference Reading, England

January 15, 2009Course: Using ICT in Chemistry Teaching. (Beginners) Day 2Venue: Monaghan Education Centre

January 20, 2009Course: Using ICT in Chemistry Teaching. (Beginners) Day 2Venue: Kilkenny Education Centre

January 22, 2009Course: Using ICT in Chemistry Teaching. (Beginners) Day 2Venue: West Cork Education Centre

January 22, 2009Course: Using ICT to Enhance the Teaching and Learning ofPhysics Day 2Venue: Co Wexford Education Centre

January 23 2009Course: Using ICT to Enhance the Teaching and Learning ofPhysics Day 2Venue: Blackrock Education Centre

January 27, 2009Course: Using ICT in Chemistry Teaching. (Beginners) Day 2Venue: Galway Education Centre

January 29, 2009Course: Using ICT in Chemistry Teaching. (Beginners) Day 2Venue: Mayo Education Centre

January 30 2009Course: Using ICT to Enhance the Teaching and Learning ofPhysics Day 2Venue: Carrick on Shannon Education Centre

February 3, 2009Course: Using ICT in Chemistry Teaching. (Beginners) Day 2Venue: Drumcondra Education Centre

February 5, 2009Course: Using ICT in Chemistry Teaching. (Advanced) Day 2Venue: Dublin West Education Centre

February 6, 2009Course: Using ICT to Enhance the Teaching and Learning ofPhysics Day 2Venue: Laois Education Centre

February 10, 2009Course: Using ICT in Chemistry Teaching. (Advanced) Day 2Venue: Kildare Education Centre

February 11, 2009Course: Flash Animations in the Physics Classroom Day 2Venue: Cork Education Support Centre

February 12, 2009Course: Using ICT in Chemistry Teaching. (Advanced) Day 2Venue: Clare Education Centre

Mid-Term Break Feb 16 – Feb 20

February 24, 2009Course: Using ICT in Chemistry Teaching. (Advanced) Day 2Venue: Donegal Education Centre

February 27, 2009Course: Flash Animations in the Physics Classroom Day 2Venue: Galway Education Centre

March 3, 2009Course: Using ICT in Chemistry Teaching. (Advanced) Day 2Venue: Waterford Teachers Centre

March 4, 2009Course: Using ICT to Enhance the Teaching and Learning ofPhysics Day 2Venue: Athlone Education Centre

March 5, 2009Course: Using ICT in Chemistry Teaching. (Advanced) Day 2Venue: Dublin West Education Centre

March 6, 2009Course: Implementing Current Teaching and Learningstrategies in Science Day 2Venue: Cork Education Support Centre

November 6, 2008 Course: Using ICT in Chemistry Teaching. (Advanced) Day 1Venue: Waterford Teachers Centre

November 6, 2008Course: Induction Course for Physics Teachers Day 2Venue: Cork Education Support Centre Further day in 2009

November 11, 2008Course: Using ICT to Enhance the Teaching and Learning ofPhysics Day 1Venue: Co Wexford Education Centre

November 11, 2008 Course: Using ICT in Chemistry Teaching. (Advanced) Day 1Venue: Clare Education Centre

November 13, 2008Course: Leaving Certificate Physics ExperimentsVenue: Milltown, Co Kerry

November 13, 2008Course: Using ICT in Chemistry Teaching. (Advanced) Day 1Venue: Donegal Education Centre

November 14, 2008Course: Induction Course for Physics Teachers Day 2Venue: Dublin West Education Centre Further day in 2009

November 14, 2008Course: Physics Datalogging Induction CourseVenue: Carrick on Shannon Education Centre

November 20, 2008Course: Using ICT to Enhance the Teaching and Learning ofPhysics Day 1Venue: Laois Education Centre

November 20, 2008Course: Chemistry Resource Day. Venue: Athlone Education Centre

November 24, 2008Course: Using ICT to Enhance the Teaching and Learning ofPhysics Day 1Venue: Carrick on Shannon Education Centre

November 25, 2008Course: Laboratory management for Chemistry TeachersVenue: Athlone Education Centre

November 27, 2008Course: Datalogging Induction in ChemistryVenue; Dublin School

November 28, 2008Course: Induction Course for Physics Teachers Day 2Venue: Galway Education Centre Further day in 2009

November 28, 2008Course: Teicneolaíocht an Eolais a úsáid chun chur lemúineadh agus foghlaim na fisiceVenue: Galway Education Centre

December 2, 2008Course: Datalogging Induction in ChemistryVenue; Dublin School

December 4, 2008 Course: Using ICT in Chemistry Teaching. (Advanced) Day 1Venue: Tralee Education Centre

December 5, 2008Course: Using ICT to Enhance the Teaching and Learning ofPhysics Day1Venue: Athlone Education Centre

December 5, 2008Course: Physics Datalogging Induction CourseVenue: Kildare Education Centre

December 9, 2008Course: Induction Course for Chemistry Teachers Day 2Venue; University of Limerick Further day in 2009

December 16, 2008Course: Induction Course for Chemistry Teachers Day 2Venue: Athlone I.T Further day in 2009

December 16, 2008Course: Implementing Current Teaching and Learningstrategies in Science Day 1Venue: Cork Education Support Centre

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A MAGAZINE FOR SECOND LEVEL TEACHERS OF ... Magazine Issue...The review of Biology, Chemistry and Physics is greatly influenced by the five key skills that are central to teaching