Sunday, March 25, 2007

Science with a bang

Boomer has a new approach to teaching, "anything that makes a bang or a noise is good".
One day the cops showed up as a result of a half-baked Boomer stunt. He was testing whether a 1.5-million-volt Tesla coil could shoot a spark across the room. In the process, he cut off all police radio communications for miles.

Boomer’s reaction: “Neat!”
Would you have liked him as your science teacher?

While Shane Totten won the Golden Apple award for teaching.
Students line up in pairs and hold balloons attached to sticks over a candle. The balloons filled with the students’ breath, regular carbon dioxide, make small pops. The balloons filled with hydrogen the students got by combining hydrochloric acid and zinc in a flask pops and creates a small fire ball, eliciting screams from some of the kids in the class.
It’s a lesson on mini-Hindenbergs, complete with Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” in the background. --[Excerpt from Naples News]

for your viewing pleasure: What would happen when, at low gravity, balloons filled with water are pinched? NASA has posted some demo videos on this.

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