Getting Hands-On In Ann Arbor

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Summer

2014

Interactions - SPS Chapters in Action

Getting Hands-On In Ann Arbor

Physics outreach event at Ann Arbor Museum

By:

Grant Renny, SPS President

University of Michigan-Ann Arbor

A young girl explores the wonder of static electricity with a Van de Graaff generator.

Physics Palooza is our SPS chapter’s biggest outreach event each year. For two days in April we took over the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum and set up physics demos for museum-goers. Our primary audience was elementary school students, but older siblings and parents were also interested. Photos courtesy of the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum.

Over the course of the academic year we have been writing letters to sixth-grade students at Cesar Chavez Academy in Detroit to promote physics. We recently organized a trip for them to come visit our campus. They went on tours of physics labs, saw a microscopic biology interactive lab, and attended a planetarium show. At the end we put on a physics demo show that they loved. These activities were supported by a 2013–14 SPS Future Faces of Physics Award. (See www.spsnational.org/programs/awards/2014/FFoP/index.htm to learn more about our project.) Photos by Mary Hemmeter and Steve Bassetteat.

Students from the Cesar Chavez Academy wait patiently as liquid nitrogen is used as a cooling agent in the production of the ice cream they are about to eat.

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Interactions - SPS Chapters in Action