HE STEM Collaborative Practice Transfer Fund
Final Report
“Luggage Lab”
“Luggage Lab”
Abstract
A collaboration between the University of Hertfordshire (UH), the Institute of Physics (IoP) and the
Science Learning Centre East of England (SLC-EoE) developed a set of self-contained, portable physics
experiments and associated online resources which can be used in school-linked outreach or which can
be loaned to schools via the SLC-EoE Kit Club. The experiments bridge the transition from school to
University physics, and are intended to build students interests in, engagement with, and understanding
of physics.
Background
Physics is widely regarded as one of the more difficult subjects students take at school and university. As
a result, a minority of students continue with physics to more advanced levels. It is often noted that
students enjoy practical classes more than theoretical ones. Regrettably, with fewer schools having
teachers with a physics degree, it becomes increasingly difficult for schools to select, provide and
explain the significance of physics experiments. Increasing students’ opportunities to encounter and
conduct interesting experiments provides one means of supporting their learning and sustaining their
engagement with physics, and may result in them continuing its study it to more advanced levels.
“Luggage Lab” took some of its inspiration from the successful IoP operated project “Lab in a Lorry”, and
has some parallels with the independently conceived “Spectroscopy in a Suitcase” project .
Implementation
The “Luggage Lab” experiments are grouped into four themed packages, summarised in Table 1. This
creates the possibility of teachers exploiting synergies between two or more experiments to create a
sequence of activities which draw students toward more advanced topics.
Table 1.
Summary of themes, experiments, and packaging
Theme
Resonance
Wave-particle
duality
Energy from
light
Speed of light
Experimental package
Notes
1. Resonances:
mechanical,
acoustic,
electrical,
atomic
2. Optical diffraction
Electron diffraction
3. Photoelectric effect and
photovoltaics
4. time delays
driven pendulum near resonance;
acoustic tube and standing waves
LCR circuit + oscilloscope;
direct vision spectroscope
red & green lasers through lycopodium;
electron diffraction tube
Photoelectric effect
Solar panel
Time delays in optical propagation in air and
glass (optical fibre) and electrical
propagation in coaxial cable;
Michaelson interferometry
5. refractive indices
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Barriers
The project took longer to complete than originally anticipated. While none of the barriers were
insurmountable, they were somewhat frustrating. In summary they were:
1. Communication errors: the announcement of the success of the original HE STEM grant bid was
not received by the bidding team until some weeks later, once the project list became public.
2. Unproductive consultations: rather than press on with what we considered suitable
experiments, we sought the views of school teachers via a number of routes involving UH, the
IoP and the SLC EoE. Response were enthusiastic but not very focussed. In the end, the team
went ahead with its own ideas, after waiting fruitlessly for input from potential final users.
3. Time demands: progress developing, testing and piloting the packages was slower than
anticipated due to competing time demands
Enablers
The commitment of effort from a physics lab technician on the development of the experiments, and
the developer to assemble, integrate and test the packages was essential. The many voices of support
for the project helped assure us that the completed project would be welcomed by the end users.
Evidence of success/impact
We undertook three pilots during spring 2011:
(1) 25 March 2011: Public Open Night, Bayfordbury Observatory and Science Learning Centre
(2) 30 March 2011: UH+AimHigher STEM Fair, University of Hertfordshire
(3) 7 April 2011: SASP teachers, Science Learning Centre East of England
These events are described in greater detail below. Two further pilots will take place in summer 2011:
(4) School visit to Highlands School, Enfield, 30 June 2011
(5) Big Bang STEM Fair at Duxford, Cambridgeshire, 13 July 2011
25 March 2011: Public Open Night, Bayfordbury Observatory and Science Learning Centre
Open Nights are a regular winter/spring event at the Bayfordbury Observatory and Science Learning
Centre East of England, and attract typically 400-500 visitors at a time, on four or five Friday evenings.
Visitors cover a wide age range, but with a high proportion of school groups and community groups (e.g.
brownies). We provided visitors with access to the Michaelson interferometer, the wave-particle duality
kit, and the refractive index kit, each of which had a demonstrator/explainer in attendance.
For a general-public audience such as this, we did not attempt to take measurements or undertake
quantitative analyses of the experiments, but demonstrated them and allowed visitors to interact with
them in a qualitative way. The most popular was the refractive index kit because of its emphasis on
geometric optics (spectacles, cameras etc.). This stand was swamped with visitors for fully 3 hours
without pause! The younger visitors could relate well to this simply equipment. High-school students
took a greater interest in the lasers and electron-diffraction demonstration, while those who already
had a deeper interest in physics joined in discussion of the interferometer and the Michaelson_Morley
experiment.
We did not formally record feedback at this event, but the quote of the night went to the heart of the
raison d’etre of Luggage Lab:
Year 9 student (female):
“I love science, but we don’t get to do many experiments.”
30 March 2011: UH+AimHigher STEM Fair, University of Hertfordshire
The University of Hertfordshire organised a STEM fair attended by a number of Hertfordshire secondary
schools. Each school rotated around a subset of stands in 30 minute periods, having nominated in
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advance which stands it would visit. Over the course of the day, ten schools visited the physics stand.
Each visiting group consisted of typically 6-8 students accompanied by a teacher and a university guide.
The students were given a quick qualitative demonstration of the wave-particle duality experiments by
the explainer, and were then guided through the process of making there own quantitative
measurements of optical and electron diffraction patterns. The students chose who would take the
measurements and who would calculate the photon and electron wavelengths; roles for all 6-8 students
in a group were readily found. Some, but not all, of the school groups admitted to having encountered
wave diffraction in class, though few appeared confident about it and none were familiar with electron
diffraction. Thus the experiment achieved its aim of beginning from a familiar starting point and leading
the students to a new result which they had not encountered at school.
Students were surveyed afterwards by the STEM fair organisers. Responses for the physics stand
(Luggage Lab) were as follows:
Very enjoyable or
Very enjoyable,
Very interesting Very interesting,
enjoyable
enjoyable, or
or Interesting
interesting or
neutral
neutral
45%
90%
61%
94%
Clearly, the majority of students found the Luggage Lab activity interesting, and most of them enjoyed it
or, at least, did not take a negative view of their experience.
7 April 2011: SASP teachers, Science Learning Centre East of England
“Luggage Lab” was permitted to take over an afternoon session of the physics “Science as an Additional
Specialism (SASP)” course run for teachers by the SLC-EoE. The session was attended by approximately
16 existing teachers who are undergoing additional training to teach in physics. The class was split into
four groups of four teachers, and each group undertook one of the following experiments: Michaelson
interferometer; speed of light measurements in air and glass; pulse propagation through a coaxial cable;
wave-particle duality.
The teachers were found to have a range of levels of confidence in dealing with experiments, and it was
easy to see that teachers who are less confident would have struggled on their own to conceive,
develop and implement experiments of this nature. It was for teachers such as these that “Luggage Lab”
offers a solution, by providing selected equipment and experimental scripts for both closed and openended activities.
Feedback was sought by the SASP tutor from the teachers at the end of the 90 minute session. It was
very complimentary and confirmed the worth of “Luggage Lab” in schools:
Optical diffraction: Accessible and easy to take the measurements. Most pupils would work through this
with little help. Excellent resource.
Optical diffraction: Very good session. Really felt I achieved/learnt something. The practical involving
working out the λ of green light would be a very good practical for school.
Electron diffraction: A good experience to use equipment that would not be readily available in school
and gives you data to be able to work out electron wavelength.
Electron diffraction: Use of cathode ray tube to help link electron ‘wave’ to ripple tank experiment would
be good
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Speed of light through fibre optics: Good results with different lengths of optical fibres. Oscilloscope
tricky to use. Good “measurements” activity.
Speed of light through fibre optics and in air: Good to do – relate to mirror on Moon and distance to
Moon. Good to show loss of signal in optical fibres.
Michaelson interferometer: Thanks for the demonstration. Interferometer has excellent potential for AS
level teaching and I would have loved to have this piece of equipment during my diffraction grating
lesson.
Recommendations for others
In “Luggage Lab”, going out to consultation with teachers reassured us that the project’s aims were
laudable, but did not result in other concrete input to the project. With the benefit of hindsight, my
current recommendation to developers on similar projects would be to trust your professional intuition
and forge ahead with your project without feeling the need to seek further external input.
Case Study: Wave Particle Duality
Rationale
Quantum Physics provides a most fascinating insight into the nature of matter and energy, and the
interactions of the two. Part of this fascination for students arises from the microscopic scales involved,
and part from its counterintuitive nature as many of the lessons learned in classical physics are replaced
with very different explanations in quantum physics. School physics students meet some aspects of the
microscopic world in A-levels, such as the basic structure of atoms and nuclei, and processes such as
nuclear decay. However, most of quantum physics is held over to university study, when students are
better equipped mathematically to describe wave properties. Consequently, school students do not
usually meet one of the fundamental concepts of quantum physics, wave particle duality, other than for
light where they may touch on the photoelectric effect. The rationale behind the “wave particle duality”
Luggage Lab package is to remind students of the wave properties of light, and then to demonstrate that
massive particles (electrons) also have wave properties. In this way, the package of two experiments
helps bridge the path from A-levels to university physics, and shines a light onto the study path ahead,
at a time when A-level students are considering whether to study physics beyond A-levels.
Experiments
The Luggage Lab “Wave Particle Duality” package contains two experiments.
Light Diffraction Experiment
The package contains two lasers, one red and one green, and a glass slide onto which a thin dusting of
lycopodium powder can be deposited. The package contains safety information on the use of lasers and
the lycopodium. Students are guided through the process of projecting the diffraction pattern from the
lycopodium spores onto a screen, and calculating the size of the spores from the size of the diffraction
rings of the laser of known wavelength. The students can repeat the experiment using the green laser,
measure the (smaller) diameter of the diffraction rings, and hence can derive the wavelength of the
green laser. The package also includes a number of single and multiple slits, and students are directed
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towards more open investigations of diffraction and interference phenomena using these slits and the
lasers. By undertaking this experiment, the students should gain familiarity with the appearance and
measurement of diffraction patterns as a means of probing the wave properties of light.
The experiment is valuable on its own, but has a deep synergy with the particle diffraction experiment,
which is packaged together with the first one.
Electron Diffraction Experiment
The package contains an electron-diffraction chamber, which is an evacuated glass sphere coupled to an
electron source (hot wire), accelerating potential, and containing a thin slice of graphite which acts as a
diffraction grating. The wall of the glass chamber fluoresces when struck by the electrons, and hence
shows the diffraction pattern (circular rings) due to the wave-properties of the electron. By varying the
accelerating potential in the chamber, students can control the energy and hence the wavelength of the
electrons, and from measurements of the size of the diffraction rings they can calculate the dependence
of the electron’s de Broglie wavelength on its energy. From the equation for the de Broglie wavelength,
and given the charge and mass of the electrons, students can also calculate Planck’s constant. Most
importantly, the experiment demonstrates to students that particles they have previously considered
just as particles have similar wave-like properties to light. This early exposure to one of the fundamental
concepts of quantum mechanics will hopefully ease their early encounters with quantum physics and
why the rules differ from classical physics, and might also give them insights into the fascinating journey
that lies in physics beyond A-levels.
Supporting materials
The experiments are supported by a website which enables teachers and students to access historical
information, information on the scientific background, procedural and safety instructions, and examples
of the analysis, before and after they conduct the experiments.
Sean Ryan
University of Hertfordshire
8/6/11
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