Visits to the demonstration classroom
The question of illustrating electromagnetic phenomena is often pondered during Professor Ari Sihvola’s lectures. TiNA has supported the development of demos and demonstration devices aiming at illustrating theories that are difficult to understand. For example a do-it-yourself electric motor was generated during the project. The motor constructed for TiNA is on view for pupils of different ages in a demonstration classroom at Helsinki University of Technology. Students from comprehensive schools and upper secondary schools in the Helsinki metropolitan area have visited the TiNA demonstration classroom. Engineering students have guided the visits. They tell the pupils about electricity and electrical safety taking the pupils’ ages and background information into account. The students tell about studies at Helsinki University of Technology and about job possibilities for Masters of Science in Technology. The point is to give the teachers information they can circulate to other teachers. During such visits the pupils do some small electrical installations, for example create electricity with the help of a potato, and a magnet from nails. In the end the students summarize the visit and repeat what the pupils have learnt. Such a visit usually takes approximately ninety minutes depending on the group size. During the last thirty minutes the pupils go to one of the Department’s laboratories. The most popular laboratories have been the cottage lab for applied electronics, listening room for voice processing and acoustics, an echoless room, electrical networks and the Tesla transformer for high-voltage engineering.
A good operation model is to plan illustrative demos for phenomena in physics and to let the pupils experiment. Problems in mathematics, physics and chemistry that are linked to crafts, were developed for girls in upper level of comprehensive school. A ”Lasketaan langasta” material was put together from the problems. Corresponding demonstration classroom activity can be arranged in vocational schools, universities of applied sciences and in enterprises.