Building Physics Apparatus for Children

• Autores: Jr. Thomas B. Greenslade
• Localización: The Physics Teacher, ISSN 0031-921X, Vol. 61, Nº. 6, 2023, págs. 458-460
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Parenthood brought me a whole new range of responsibilities. In 1965 and 1967, the arrival of Thomas B. Greenslade III and Russell MacWilliam Greenslade brought me the opportunity to bring up two children from “mewling infants”1 to be responsible and scientifically literate members of society. In this note, I will describe five pieces of apparatus: a telescope, a microscope, a galvanometer, an opaque projector, and an air table that I built for my boys to bring them into the worlds of physical science.

    Over the years, I found that it was best to provide them with basic raw materials for scientific play. Early on, I made 100 and more wooden building blocks. These were designed to have thickness, width, and length measurements in the ratio of 1 to 2 to 3. This allowed for a certain amount of symmetry, and I also made a series of thin pieces of wood for ramps, roofs, and floors. I remembered how much fun it was to design and build structures with blocks like this as a child myself, and I often found myself on the floor with Russell and Tom, now 52 and 54 years old. They had access to stocks of paper for folding and drawing, plus tape for sticking things together and lengths of string of various colors and lengths. In addition, there were wooden cylinders around which the string could be wound. Early on, I showed them what fun it was to make drawings using a straight edge and a pencil compass. Later on they were introduced to the Spirograph, although I spent a fair amount of time playing with it myself.