Everyone starts life as a scientist

Physics is a real-world subject; we are surrounded by it, and indeed using it all the time. James Johns, Head of Physics, believes the key to inspiring future Physicists is tapping into our innate childhood curiosity and sense of adventure and combining it with the skills to investigate and analyse in an organised manner. 

Everyone starts life as a scientist.  From our earliest days, we all have an intuitive understanding of Physics – toddlers know that if they lean too much on a stool it will topple; young children have learnt how to balance a seesaw with friends and recognise the feeling of reaching the highest point on a swing. 

Our understanding of the world develops by being naturally curious and adventurous.   As we move through life we develop ‘tool-kits’ of ideas and equations to describe our experiences and then use them to predict what will happen in more complicated situations which are beyond our day-to-day experiences.

Physics, as a subject, is about helping to explain this intuitive understanding of the world.  It is about taking that curiosity and interest to the next level and supporting it with an organised and efficient approach to experimentation.

This is where a school steps in.  Here, we promise an ‘adventurous education’, both in and out of the classroom; play and experimentation are part of school life.  We recognise that to really develop a pupil’s mental ‘tool kit’ we need to be fuelling their curiosity and giving them interesting topics to investigate.

Wherever possible we teach using real-world situations, in the most appropriate (and often exciting) locations.  What better way to work out the volume of a student, than by submerging them in a tank of water – much in the same way as when Archimedes first discovered the physical law of buoyancy.  The steps to then work out whether the calculated density means they should float or sink if thrown in the pool are much more intuitively understood!

Further up the school the department’s one-person, lawn-blower powered hovercraft, and carefully used bed of nails, helps students grasp the concept of pressure. In both these cases, the outcome is against our intuition, and the visceral feeling of surprise is a powerful way of getting students to question their understanding of the topic.

At A level, in addition to returning to the swings in the play park, and measuring the height of bubbles in a head of beer, we also study topics that require the observation of the microscopically small or the astronomically large. Unlike a university laboratory, the real world isn’t full of specialist equipment for making these observations, but, by developing students understanding of experimental design, they can discover amazing truths using the most straightforward equipment. For example, students use a ruler and standard lab equipment to find the mass of an electron, one of the smallest particles known to science.

Perhaps the most exciting experiment available to our pupils is our own 22m tall ship, Jolie Brise. The range of Physics available here in a single, immersive environment is huge. As a traditional vessel built before the era of engines or electricity, Jolie Brise was engineered using simple Physics to allow her to be sailed using only human power. There are no complex winches or hydraulics to help her crew, and this makes her an exceptional Physics lab.

The loads in Jolie Brise’s rigging when she is sailing are much bigger than most school laboratory equipment can measure. We were therefore delighted when the Parents’ Association funded a special, multi-tonne load measuring device that allows the forces to be displayed on a phone and allows us to make the most of the opportunities Jolie Brise offers.

Each year we take A level students to measure the forces involved in making her sail, consider how her sails allow her to make progress upwind, to work out how her mast withstands the massive forces on it, and finally to calculate the power she develops overall.

Watching them work together to set up a load cell on the moving deck of a tall ship at sea, take real-world measurements, process them and then use physics to explain what they are experiencing showcases learning at its best and I have no doubt is an experience they will never forget.  

Being able to teach through concrete, real-world experiences, where pupils are able to feel, hear and see the physics themselves allows for better understanding and in turn more confident and able pupils. 

As a physics teacher, seeing students develop into budding scientists in their own right is the ultimate aim – but seeing them do so whilst having new adventures and gaining real-life experience is incredibly rewarding.