TOPScience Resources--People willing to share


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San
Joaquin
Some of the volunteers have volunteered information about specialized equipment or skills that they have and are willing to share. ALL the volunteers are willing to take on almost any request to research a topic or to provide information or to help in developing a lesson plan or powerpoint presentation. Most of the volunteers are also willing to share at schools other than the one where they usually volunteer.

Art Krakowsky

  • Van de Graaff Demonstration.
  • Static elecricity, conductor, insulator, grounding, ionization, discharge.
  • Powerpoint Lightning Presentation
  • Static electricity, ionization, electric current, safety, speed of sound and light.
  • Build an electric motor--each student builds their own.
  • Current electricity, magnetism, energy, insulator, conductor, motor applications.
  • Density--students make measurements of various materials--lead, copper, wood, etc.
  • Mass vs. weight, volume by displacement, graphing, estimation, density of various materials.
  • Magnetism--Several stations where students discover magnetism properties.
  • Series and parallel circuits.
  • Vacuum with bell jar-- Sound transmission, marshmallow expansion, gravity.
  • Several GEMS lessons--Chemical reactions, Oobleck, Density, etc.
  • Thermal conductivity of various materials--Graphing timed measurements. Correlate with electrical conductivity.
  • I have an oscilloscope and can demonstrate sound wave forms that students generate and waveforms of different frequencies.
  • I have a hydrolysis set-up
  • I have a lesson to help students visualize how sound is used to visualize what's inside the earth.

Barbara Mallon

  • Earthquakes and plate tectonics
  • Air pressure. (I saved some Coleman cans to buckle.)
  • Planets, moon, height of sun at noon through the year in the planetarium and from a computer to a classroom screen.
  • Digital frog (a virtual dissection that you can go where you want and ask as many questions as you like. The kicker is at the end you can hear frog sounds around the world.)
  • How a glow stick works.
  • Atoms and molecules. (I need to find something that isn't so sticky but you can build with toothpicks).
  • Properties of different wavelengths of light. (hand prints on photo paper, UV beads, Infrared camera set up from Sandia)
  • Alka-Seltzer rockets.
  • TJ's tea tray.
  • Electricity and motor experiments

Bill Bish

  • I am a mechanical engineering with a specialty in design.
  • I have knowledge, experience in collecting, and a collection of rocks & minerals.
  • One item in my collection is a display of fossil leaves, stems, flowers from the Pennsylvanian period that my family collected from the coal strip mines in central Illinois.
  • I have a list of challenge design/build projects for 4 or 5th graders much like the egg drop - impact packaging contest held @ Arroyo Seco. There are presently 6 projects on the list and I am working on more.
  • I have access to a Geiger counter and some radioactive mineral specimens.

Nancy Stoyer

  • B.S. in Chemistry; Ph.D. in Chemistry (focus on Nuclear Science)
  • My expertise includes the periodic table, new element discovery, nuclear energy, radiochemistry, nuclear science, age dating, radioactivity, nuclear structure, nuclear forensics, and a bunch of other nuclear topics.
  • I enjoy cooking and the science that is involved with that. A couple years ago I did some experiments with GATE students at Arroyo Seco Elementary on freezing point depression which included making frozen yogurt and observing the texture and sweetness of different fruit ices. A few months ago I did an experiment with the 2nd grade classes at Arroyo Seco Elementary on yeast; we talked about what they are, what they eat, what they produce, and how they are used.

Gary Porter

  • Education in geology (undergraduate), physics and Nuclear Engineering
    Research experience in magnetic fusion
  • In grades 3,4 and 5: Physical science, static electricity, electricity, magnetism, pressure Earth science, minerals, gems, plate tectonics
  • I have put together PowerPoint presentations on static electricity, magnetism, Newton's laws, the scientific method and solar pictures

Ken Mitchell

  • I have had the 4th and 5th graders make simple electric motors
  • Star finders, all grades
  • Solar system/star watching, 3rd graders
  • Vibration (guitar songs, which they liked better than anything else that day)
  • Water-cycle
  • Making a cloud chamber
  • GATE students played with Soma Cubes for several weeks and
    made height finders.
  • Second graders learned about wind forces and built simple paper airplanes --
    drove the teachers nuts for a few weeks afterwards. The students proudly
    showed me their little planes trapped in the unreachable areas of the
    classroom. :-)
  • I did a number of sessions on basic astronomy topics in preparation for the planetarium session.
  • Kindergarten kids got a basic introduction to hand tools. They loved the mortise saw and enjoyed hammering nails into wood blocks -- unfortunately some nailed the blocks to the floor. Lots of fun.

Carl Rosenkilde

  • Van de Graaff Demonstration: charge repulsion and attraction, direction of electrical force, ionization, discharge, shielding and grounding (safety), establish sign of charge. Comment: This demonstration is suitable for 4th grade students, who have been exposed to the fact that there are two kinds of charge and that like charges repel and unlike charges attract. I illustrate and reinforce those concepts in my 30-40 minute presentation.
  • Tesla Coil Demonstration: EM waves, shielding, conductivity, ionization, discharge. Comment: This demonstration is best done after students have seen a Van de Graaff presentation. It takes less time, about 15-20 minutes.
  • Earth's Circumference Measurement: This is a outdoor activity using GPS device(s) to repeat the estimate of the Earth's circumference made by Eratosthenes (200 BC). Knowledge of circle properties (pi) and some large number multiplication would be helpful.


T.J. Gilmartin-Although T.J. is not currently active in TOPScience, He indicated that he would be willing to occasionally teach a class.

  • Physical Sciences, Mechanics, Astronomy, Optics and Lasers, Mathematics
  • Projects: Weather station, planetary astronomy sun dial, catapults, constellations, Newton (Laws) Turkish Tea Tray, Comets (dry ice), Archimedes, Bernoulli, Pascal principles, Circuits, Thrust (balloons)
  • Equipment: Turkish tea trays, catapults, video microscope (1X, 30X, 200X) playable through TV, installed weather station (wind, temperature, pressure), 18X image-stabilized binoculars (birds, moon, Jupiter
  • Level: worked mostly with 8th grade