Physics in Practice
The Institute of Physics in Ireland
12 July 2007
At the QUB 34th annual conference for Physics Teachers, Carles Morros technician from Belfast Metropolitan College demonstrates the electric field between two oppositely charged plates.
'Physics in Practice', the 34th annual conference for Physics Teachers in Northern Ireland was attended by over 60 teachers at Queens University Belfast on 27 June.
The meeting opened with a very entertaining and informative lecture 'The Human Body - the Ultimate Physics Laboratory' presented by medical physicist Kevin McGuigan. A lecture originally devised for teenagers as a way to interest them in physics, McGuigan did not censor any of the 'gory detail' in the lecture (to the delight of the teachers!)
John Nunn from the National Physics Laboratory followed with a presentation of the invaluable new teaching resource called 'The Virtual Laboratory'. This was originally developed in India where Nunn was teaching and few of the schools or students had access to a laboratory - hence the idea of producing a virtual one.
'Sizing up our galaxy - stars and space travel' by Stephen Smartt kept the audience fascinated with very clear explanations and illustrations of the basic tennets of astronomy - one of the best topics in physics to capture students interest. The meeting ended with the ever popular 'hands on and easy to prepare' demonstrations from the Irish 'Science on Stage' team, led by Paul Nugent and further useful teaching and demonstration examples of physics brought by the Science Enhancement Project.