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Overview Minigrants
Museum Shows Summer Camps For Teachers Workshops Fellowships Demonstrations For Undergrads IPSE
Education
Teacher ResourcesClassroom Demonstrations
To arrange a demonstration for your class during a visit to Penn State or for us to present the demonstrations in-person in your classroom contact the Outreach Coordinators—we'd be happy to help!
| Chills and Thrills of Low Temperature Physics | |||
| In the one hour demonstration show "Chills and Thrills of Low Temperature Physics," MRSEC faculty and graduate students introduce participants to the concept of absolute zero, phase transitions and some of the thrilling phenomena that occur at low temperatures. |
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| LED Flashlights | |||
| By the end of this workshop, middle or high school participants will know how a light emitting diode (LED) works, how LEDs are different from regular light bulbs and why this is important, how they can make an electrical circuit to power an LED, and will have built their own LED flashlight. Along the way, participants in this workshop also learn about the nature of light and the basics of digital displays, resistors and soldering. |
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| Smart sensors | |||
| During this workshop, middle or high school participants learn about the attributes and advantages of smart sensors. Participants are challenged to explain the workings of a commercial motion detector through the observation of its stimulus and response to various materials and conditions. During a tour of some interesting sensors participants are asked to observe, describe and hypothesize about the properties of various sensors. After constructing models of a PVDF monomer and polymer, participants investigate the piezoelectric and pyroelectric response of a PVDF film and are asked to interpret their experimental results using their models. |
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| Materials Matter | |||
| The theme of the hour long show is micro makes macro. Each vignette within the show has a macro part which demonstrates the actual material, such as a shape memory alloy, polymerizing gummy worms, or a zeolite atomic sieve. The micro part then uses a mechanical model to demonstrate to the naked eye what's happening on the atomic scale in the real material to give it that funky property. Click here for more information about Materials Matter. |
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