Year 12 Physics excursion to University of Sydney

On the 17^th of August all Year 12 Physics students participated in the excursion to the Kickstart Physics Workshop. On that day, they had an early start, meeting at Blacktown Station, travelling to Redfern Station and then walking to the University of Sydney as many hundreds and thousands of university students do.

Upon arrival they had a chance to browse among some archived physics apparatus displayed in the Physics Department at the University of Sydney. Then they were given a tour, by the host of the Kickstart Program, of the newly opened Nanoscience Laboratory (one of the very few research facilities of this kind in the world.) This was a great opportunity for our students, as it enabled the students to see how scientists are pushing the boundaries of Physics by trying to discover and harness new science at nanoscale level, in an absolutely dust free environment. Many students came to realise, the importance of the utilisation of creativity and imagination within physics for future discoveries and technologies, which have only just begun to scratch the surface.

After visiting the Nanoscience Laboratory and other research facilities within the Physics Department, students spent several hours doing the workshop where they rotated through different experiments related to the topic they have studied, “From Ideas to Implementation”. This workshop took place in the second year physics laboratory. Each rotation consisted of a demonstration that was conducted by a dynamic demonstrator and covered highlights of the syllabus in depth. The students gathered and analysed first hand data to calculate very important constants in physics such as speed of light, charge to mass ratio of electron, Planck’s constant etc.

Overall, this excursion helped our students in two ways, one, to succeed in the upcoming HSC Physics Examination and two; to think about possible pathways for their tertiary education.

Mr Raj Jayaratna
Physics Teacher