Dry Ice Fun!

Courtesy of Dr. Simon Foster, the Outreach Officer of the Physics Department at Imperial College I was able to bring in some dry ice to Heston Community School = FUN!

Here is the fun in action!

Smokey science
Dry ice is frozen carbon dioxide (the stuff that is produced when we respire and we exhale it too). Carbon dioxide makes up 0.04% of the Earth's atmosphere. 

Dry ice is super cold with a chilly temperature of -78.5 °C! And to think that your fridge is warm in comparison with a temperature of 0°C! This is why we have to wear insulated gloves to protect our skin from getting a cold burn when we handle dry ice. 

One special thing about dry ice is that it changes directly from a solid to a liquid, a process known as sublimation (a nice word to impress your friends with!) Hence its name, dry ice, because it does not go through the liquid state in atmospheric conditions - doesn't melt like an ice cube. 

You may have noticed that the 'smoke' seems to fall downwards, partly due to gravity but also due to the fact that carbon dioxide is more dense than air and so sinks. An 'ice' cube of dry ice weighs about double that of a normal ice cube. 

So much science in just frozen carbon dioxide! 

Here are some fun projects you can do if you get hold of some dry ice from your local university or supplier.

Quanta Claus

In the festive mood for Dr. Roberto Trotta's festive competition - write a letter to Santa using the 1000 most common words in English, here's mine:

Dear Santa,

Thank you very much for the presents you gave me in the last ten add eight add one years, in that time I learnt lots of amazing things about my home. Things like why the sky is blue, why soft, white ice falls from the sky when you come sometimes but then I got thinking about how you give all the presents to everyone on time.

So here are my thoughts…

Firstly, I thought of the different times of day and night around the world and how you would chase the dark night but this did not work because it would mean that you have to move very, very, very, very fast which would make you burn because of all the air rubbing against you just like space-rocks that enter our air bubble .

So then I thought about how very small matter works and its strange ways. The story of the very small goes like this, everything is a wave that is all around us and can make its way through walls sometimes. And because you know when we are sleeping and when we are up and whether we have been bad or good then I am sure you know how to use this ‘power’ and give us presents. So thank you for not only the presents but for working so hard to give them to us.

Thank you,

Meriame 

The above explains that if Santa were to try and make use of the different time zones then he would have to deliver presents to 10,000 homes every second if he were to finish the job in 48 hours, if we take the global population to be seven billion and the average family size to be four people. But then he would need to travel at incredible speeds which would mean that air resistance would set Santa on fire just like a meteor entering the Earth's atmosphere! 

So then Quantum has the answer, Quanta Claus! In quantum mechanics particles have no definite position but exist as a wave that is spread out over all of space and can even 'tunnel' through barriers sometimes! So because Santa knows when we are sleeping, and know when we are awake and whether we have been bad or good then he must know how to harness this bit of physics and deliver the presents on time!

Quanta Claus!

Women in Physics

A piece inspired by Dr. Roberto Trotta, an astrophysicist at Imperial College that encourages women to communicate the amazing physics that they do. Dr. Trotta wrote a book, The Edge of the Sky, using the 1000 most common words in English and describes a female scientist learning more about the Universe and Cosmology and so I decided to try it out writing a piece using those 1000 words:

A lot of women student-people find out amazing things yet they are hidden away and never known about. Like me, a lot of women student-people felt alone in the field of ‘learning more about our home’ but now there are lots of other women student-people who want to change this and make others feel like they fit in this field. Us women student-people fit in better now but there is still some work left to do, so share your story and make other women feel like they fit in!

Meriame Berboucha

One day, us women student-people will fit in.

Smoke rings!

You can do science at home!

You can make some...

Get a plastic cup, balloon, scissors and matches... yep, that's all!

Then cut a hole at the bottom of the cup, like that in the following drawing. Cut the top of the balloon and stretch it over the top of the cup so that it is flat. You're done! You can now start making some smoke rings!

End product

Safety warning: the next steps involve using matches so if you are young please get an adult to supervise you and most importantly beware of the heat of the flame and the fact that it can burn. Also make sure you are in a well ventilated room. 

So, now light a match and blow it out then place the match or a candle inside your smoke-ring-maker via the hole you made so that it is filled with smoke and then tap the balloon and see smoke rings form! (If you can get a hold of some dry ice then this is an added bonus! Put some water inside the cup and a bit of dry ice and you'll be making smoke rings with ease!)

Smoke rings!

Smokey Science

Your smoke-ring-maker in sciency terms is known as a VORTEX GENERATOR! (Your friends will be impressed by your knowledge with that term!) When you tap the balloon you cause a bit of air to shoot out of the hole. But the air in the middle of the hole is travelling faster than the air near the edges due to it slowing down by rubbing the sides so something called a vortex is formed - where air travels in a circle to make a ring. 

Vortex rings inside you!

Vortex rings are also formed in your heart! You can think of the hole in the bottom of the cup as a valve in your heart and as blood goes through the valve (the hole) the blood near the sides slows down while the rest in the center travels without slowing down and the vortex ring is formed!

We can all communicate science.

A sneak peak into the article that shall go in the IOP Physics Communicators Group newsletter in January.

Coming from a state school I was determined to become a role model for younger students from underprivileged backgrounds. The feelings of doubt and lack of confidence in my ability were present throughout my time at the school as well as in others, but having progressed onto further education regardless of my educational background, I felt a desire to go back and show the younger generation sitting in those classroom seats I used to sit in that they can achieve regardless of their background.

“You are all stars you just have to initiate that fusion!”

Meriame Berboucha

Being the only female in my A level Physics classes, I, like many other females across the country felt like I didn’t belong in this male-dominated field. But I wanted other girls to feel like they belonged and so I set up a Science Club, the first of its kind, at my secondary school. I wanted it to be a field for their creative, scientific minds to grow endlessly where the boundaries by syllabuses and specifications were non-existent. The students have launched rockets, made hovercrafts and discovered the fun side of science. 

I couldn’t help but feel that I had more of an impact on the students than the teachers, but I soon came to realise that it wasn’t because of me, it was because I shared common ground with the students - we sat in the same classrooms. Undergraduates are an underused resource in the field of physics communication; the small age gap between undergraduates and school student’s means that undergraduates have a larger impact on the students, so maybe this is the way forward with physics communication? – more undergraduates returning to their schools to spread the word about the cool things they learn.

Enthusiasm is definitely contagious so whether you set up your own blog, let students shadow and contact you, become a STEM Ambassador or simply give a talk, make sure your audience knows how much you love your field of work!

So, make your work known, inspire the younger generation and together we can build a better future and who knows what we will discover. To me, Physics communication has its heart where I began … in the classroom.