Lots of Light Demonstrations for Grade 10 Optics and Grade 12 Physics

Light provides lots of very cheap and very beautiful demonstrations. It also really stretches the brain because we have several very different models for it, each of which seems to contradict the other. In grade 10 students learn about the ray model of light and then in grade 12 they are hit with the wave model and then the quantum model. In this session will first explore ray optics and image formation using a pinhole camera hat, red Plexiglas, hinged mirrors, curved mirrors, glasses of water and lenses. Then we will explore the wave model with a refraction dance, variable pencil slits, straight pins and 3-D glasses. Finally, a quantum eraser will be demonstrated and you will be able to make one for yourself.

Roberta has been teaching physics in Toronto for 25 years. She is rather fanatical about modern physics and Physics Education Research and spends her spare time looking for ways to combine them to make high school physics more exciting and inviting. She has given workshops to this end around special relativity, general relativity, particle physics quantum uncertainty and entanglement. She is a consultant for the Perimeter Institute of Theoretical and the coordinator of PI’s Teacher Network. In her spare spare time she plays New Orleans jazz at Grossman’s Tavern in Toronto.