Science on Stage Canada

From 9 to 15 August 2009 the first overseas Science on Stage took place in Saskatoon, Canada. And we were invited to go there. Mr. Fock presented our project called „Model trains in physics lessons“, which we had already presented to the Canadian teachers and education staff for two times in Berlin – and with great success. In Mr Fock’s luggage there were three trains, tracks for a small layout, the new photoelectric sensors (Mekruphy), the digital components and a 110 V transformer, which we could borrow from the model train shop Lokschuppen in Augsburg. The girls of the group had worked out a new presentation just a few days before – just in case Mr. Fock would need something like that. He was really relieved about having this presentation when, at the festival, he was told that he would have to present our project in a “30 minute speech” on Wednesday. The main interest of the group members was to see what the project booth look liked and how the presentation worked. Everyone was impressed with the film we realized together with the Noch Company, the speech underlined with a PowerPoint presentation and the explanations and demonstrations at the layout with measurement of acceleration, the focus on friction and the digital system with its switches and electric couplings.

The Canadian Light Source (CLS) felt highly honoured to be chosen as the host of the first Science on Stage in Canada. The CLS is the Canadian synchrotron, an accelerator for smallest mass particles, just as it is done by DESY in Hamburg. Tracy Walker, Educational Outreach Coordinator at the CLS, and Johanne Patry, Assistant Professor at the University of Sherbrooke, Quebec, and Maths, science and technology counsellor, were the Chairpersons of the festival. Besides pedagogical talks, discussions and project presentations there were many presentations about the research at the synchrotron. A lot of talks were given, like the ones about medicine research (e.g. cancer), how they revealed the reason for the toxicological curiosity of the poisoned water supply in Bangladesh and how they solved the problem, about studies in archaeology and the project „Students on the Beam Lines“. Scientists from all over the world presented their work.

For us, one consequence of the meeting was to start a project at the synchrotron of the CLS in Saskatoon, where our students can work together with Canadian students via internet. In December Mrs. Walker and Mrs Patry will visit our school to present their projects at a teachers’ meeting and to our students.