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FUN DEMONSTRATIONS FOR INTERACTIVE TEACHING OF OPTICS,
Amy Roberts, John Noé, and Harold Metcalf,
Laser Teaching Center, Department of Physics & Astronomy,
University at Stony Brook.
The Laser Learning Center provides an environment that encourages
experimental exploration of physical concepts. Such open-ended,
self-directed exploration can be invaluable in gaining an intuitive
understanding of the physics taught in traditional courses, and students
at every level take advantage of these resouces.
In this project, we developed many simple demonstrations of fundamental
optics
phenomena in an effort to encourage students to tinker
with available equipment.
For example, a small fishtank filled with cloudy water makes `rays of
light' created by a laser pointer a tangible concept. Students can see
and experiment with reflection and refraction caused by mirrors and lenses
placed inside the tank. A bag of dissolved sugar siphoned into the bottom
of our cloudy fishtank dramatically demonstrated the sophisicated concept
of continuously-varying optical index-of-refraction. Students could also
witness diffraction first-hand by shining light from a laser pointer
through knit fabric or illuminating a ball bearing with laser light and
looking at its projected image. While these are all excellent
demonstrations of optical principles, the most important aspect of them is
that they are simple enough for the students themselves to play with: they
can shine the laser into the fishtank, move the ball bearing farther away
from the light source, change the knit of the fabric grid, and observe for
themselves what the effect is.
Everyone enjoys playing with these demonstrations, and because the
equipment and setup is simple and inexpensive, hands-on exploration is
readily available in many settings. High school students, participants
in the Women and Science and Engineering program, professional scientists,
graduate students, and high school teachers have all enjoyed playing with
the equipment, and the hope is that the demonstrations easily set up in
this lab will foster an interactive, experimental approach to learning
physics that excites and involves students.
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