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SCIENCE FOR ALL Words by Anne Bissland HEAD OF LEARNING AREA - SCIENCE
Tyla Gilberd hollowing a Canoe
Students enjoyed experiencing the university’s laboratories and handling equipment they would not normally get to see.
The Physics of $100 You may not think that New Zealand’s $100 note and Physics have a lot in common, but in fact they do. Our Year 12 Physics students recently found this out when they headed to the University of Canterbury to learn about Ernest Rutherford’s research on atomic structure. Our girls were able to interact with lecturers and students as they looked at the evolution of models of the atom. Following this, under the close supervision of lecturers, they used radioactive sources and measured the effectiveness
of biological material in absorbing radiation as well as investigating half life. No students were harmed in the process, as the biological material used were carrots! So, what does the NZ $100 note and physics have in common? Well, our $100 dollar note depicts Ernest Rutherford, a New Zealand scientist who is best known for “splitting the atom”, and beside him is a scientific graph known as an exponential decay curve. The students were able to plot this curve during their radioactivity lab.
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Students enjoyed experiencing the University’s laboratories and handling equipment they would not normally get to see. They particularly enjoyed seeing the cloud chamber but the highlight was definetly getting to ride a hovercraft.
