Brief Description of Plans for  Mobile Van Visits 
      July/August 2002



   Plans are currently:

1) Visit Gauteng mid-July/Aug. 4 approx.; visit Capetownf or 3 weeks
   starting just after August 6.

2) Approximately 15 schools would be visited.  Schools would be
   selected by the dept. of education, based on applications from 
   teachers, showing interest and ability (and plans) to benefit
   from the visit.

3) Preferably a team from the province being visited should go
   with the van, in order that the project becomes sustainable
   beyond the visit itself, and to increase the efficiency 
   of the visit.

4) Preferably a van (leased, borrowed?) or alternatively some cars
   for carrying equipment would be provided by the local province
   hosts.  Some equipment would be provided by the visiting teams
   and some would be borrowed from a local host university.
   Explanatory materials to go with each experiment would be 
   developed in a preliminary way by the US team, and then 
   vetted, criticised, improved, by local S. African participants
   before final preparation.  Could the panels describing the 
   experiments be finally prepared by the local provinces?  (Do
   they need to be professional grade, or could it be an art project?)

5) A visit to a school would consist of three parts:
  a) performing one or two experiments with student groups.
     up to 40 students could be accommodated at one time
     (with 10-15 setups). The experiments currently planned to 
     be offered would be i) physical optics, with a laser pointer,
     and scattering objects; ii) simple current electricity, with 
     resistors, parallel and series circuits.  These are just the
     two examples arising from our initial discussions; others
     could be substituted.  This first year we believe that two
     experiments is probably the maximum variety we would wish to 
     consider.  [Note: after our visit to Capetown, I also think we 
     should offer a "collisions" lab.. maybe with toy cars?]

     Tentative plan for the resistor lab would be: several identical 
     resistors, battery, and meter.  Do  series, plot nR vs 1/i, get
     V for the slope. Depending on class, introduce idea of 
     ucertainty in the graph.  Do parallel, plot total current vs number
     of resistors?  Have one coil meter (this may already be available
     in the school?) and digital meters for the students, depending on 
     cost? 

     Tentative plan for the wave (physical optics) lab would follow
     the labs I typically do with hs classes in the states: talk about
     scattering in general (cotton candy with concealed object, water
     waves , etc). give eqn. sintheta*d = n lambda as rough
     result for various kinds of apertures: small aperture means large
     scatter. check diffraction grating, hair from someone's head,
     and "rose-colored glasses" which have a grid structure.

     Tentative plan for the collisions lab: not developed yet, 
     but would probably use something like toy cars, with different
     weights, maybe some springs, etc.  would only do qualitative
     results?  probably this is for a lower grade, eg 9th? still
     thinking about it.

  b) An "exploratorium" type "show" to which any studentsk, and 
     even community members might be invited.  Possible components
     of the exploratorium show are discussed below.

  c) A "consultation" with the teacher about teaching methods,etc.
     For example, in Gauteng province, each senior school has the 
     senior Edutrade pack of equipment for demonstration work.
     A teacher might like for us to work together of some of the 
     demonstrations, to resolve problems, etc.



6) Our hope is that exploratorium equipment would either be doubled (for
   less expensive equipment) or perhaps borrowed from local sources.

   Possible exploratorium experiments and/or stage shows to be part of 
   the exploratorium are given below.  (*) marks those we thought 
   particularly useful for shows.

   1) Cloud chambers (see cosmic rays)
   2) Holograms
   3) Cathode Ray tube (augmented by open TV)
 * 4) Van de Graaf generator and related experiments (hair standing on 
      end, etc)
   5) Gyroscopes (precession by grav. weight hung off axis, bicycle wheel
      etc).
   6) Angular momenta (spinning stool, weights -- will the demosrator
      fall off the stool? bicycle wheel, etc)
   7) Virtual images using diverging lenses
   8) Parabolic focussing mirrors (sound, heat, light a match, etc..)
   9) UV light (to show that objects fluoresce...)
   10) Prisms (photoelectric effect?)
   11) Magdeburg hemispheres (hard to pull apart when evacuated because
       of outside air pressure)
   12) Sound wave/ water wave interference
   13) Particle physics, connection to light and other scattering as an
       examination of structure; (coupled with laser scattering?)
   14) Generator to show how electricity is made from conversion of
       motion (conservation of energy).
   15) Visiting seesaw (experimenting with balance condition, show
       that  L*Mg must be the same on both sides.
 * 16) Large bowling ball pendulum (again, conservation of energy).
   17) Coupled springs  / pendulums (idea of resonance and oscillators).
 *  18) Tesla coil
   

  More ideas, and criticism of these are welcome. This is just a
beginning. We are not yet sure how many of the "exploratorium" experiments
would be done in the first year.