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Middle School Physics Department: Little Scientists

January 14, 2022

This semester, the middle school physics department offered the elective course “Little Scientist.” This course aims to give students preliminary insight into the natural sciences by helping guide middle school students through the experimental process—thus building interest by serving as an interactive introduction that exposes students to the mysteries of nature. The course includes a wide variety of interesting physics and chemistry-based experiments, such as fruit batteries, the Pharaoh’s Snake as well as paper bridges. Hands-on exposure provides a more engaging student experience and empirical insight into the experimental process and encourages students to think, discover, and explore for themselves.

Fruit batteries are a type of battery that generates electricity by reacting to chemicals in fruit with metal sheets. By inserting metal electrodes into the red strips, students observe the brightness of LED lights to feel the electric energy contained in the fruit—thus laying the foundation for eighth-grade physics. The “Pharaoh’s Snake” uses baking soda and sucrose to produce a continuous combustion reaction that creates an ever-expanding snake of blackened charcoal. Students are able to witness a wonderful and shocking chemical reaction—akin to summoning a snake out of thin air. The paper bridge experiment lets students explore the potential bearing endurance of paper, a seemingly fragile and weak material. Paper bridges are created by rolling a piece of A4 paper into a rod, using a pen as a mold. Several rods are then stacked together to form a bridge that is theoretically stronger than the sum of its parts. Small objects are then stacked on the bridge to test its load capacity, challenging students to explore the combination of structure and mechanics and promoting students’ understanding of material properties.

By presenting the natural sciences in a fun and contextual setting, we hope to ignite the natural curiosity within each child, as well as foster a lifelong passion for science and discovery.

(Written by Linqiong Qiu Pictures by Shi Chengcheng Edited by Huang Shiyuan, Brie Polette)