Re: Three days to explore

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From: Ben Pittenger (benpittenger@earthlink.net)
Date: Thu Mar 25 2004 - 07:06:47 PST 

Message-ID: <19054965.1080227211642.JavaMail.root@huey.psp.pas.earthlink.net>
Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2004 07:06:47 -0800 (GMT-08:00)
From: Ben Pittenger <benpittenger@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Three days to explore

Michael - I envy you. I wish I had a block of time like that!

One idea - Since so many discoveries in science have followed advances in technology, it might be fun to have the students explore historical developments in optics/lenses/magnification/telescopes/microscopes. van Leeuwenhoek lived from 1632 to 1723, so his work is at the upper limit of your time frame. Compound microscopes were invented in the late 1500's.

I like starting my students with observations through drops of water. A drop or two or three on a penny works. I then build from there. If you have the equipment, or know someone who likes glass blowing, perhaps you could have them make some glass beads of various shapes, and see how they manipulate light. Depending on how much time and what resources you have, they could even study how to make one of the original microscopes!

Plans for van Leeuwenhoek microscope can be found here: http://www.mindspring.com/~alshinn/Leeuwenhoekplans.html

I prefer a good book, but some general optics history can be found here:
http://www.ee.umd.edu/~taylor/optics.htm
http://members.aol.com/WSRNet/D1/hist.htm

There is plenty of info out there on history of the microscope. Here are just a few that I found with a very quick search:
http://www.omni-optical.com/micro/sm101.htm
http://www.udayton.edu/~hume/Microscope/microscope.htm
http://www.sciences.demon.co.uk/whistmic.htm

Ben Pittenger

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