The McGill Physics Department outreach committee (Nikolas Provatas and Tami Pereg-Barnea) has offered to partner with Explorations Camp to further engage children and adolescents in the world of physics and the physical sciences. Under the direction of their outreach coordinator, Dr. Ashley DaSilva, McGill professors and Graduate students will meet with and inspire Explorations campers to discover and further understand various principles of science. In this regard, the McGill Physics team has essentially designed a multi-level approach for their engagement with Explorations.
Exciting opportunities for all of our campers
For our younger campers, the McGill Physics Department has offered to present modules that have been very successful with elementary school kids . This presents an exciting opportunity for our young campers to get to meet scientific experts and learn about the amazing work they do.
Our senior campers will be invited to attend two four-hour workshops at McGill, the first of which will invite our senior campers to design a physics experiment. Through this activity the kids will learn about a selected law of nature and how to test it experimentally with qualitative and quantitative analyses. The McGill Team will provide concepts and help the senior campers develop their own ideas. Campers will have access to one of the well-equipped McGill teaching labs. A discussion of the scientific method as it relates to the making and testing of a hypothesis will follow, and include an emphasis on the methodology of actual physicists.
The second visit will concentrate on well-known and important historic experiments. In this activity, the campers will learn about a past experiment that has led to contemporary understanding of an issue. Some ideas include a discussion of the Millikan experiment (the photoelectric effect) or the Rutherford experiment to understand the structure of the atom. This activity will be followed by a guided tour of McGill’s small but charming and renowned Rutherford museum.
At Explorations Camp, we believe that learning can and should be fun. We are grateful for this new, exciting partnership and we are happy to know that our campers will take part in ever more enriching, interesting activities.
To learn more about the McGill Physics Department, please visit their website.
To register your child for Explorations Camp, visit our registration page.
