Our Year 11 Extension and Year 12 General Science students went to the University of Canterbury as part of their study of Radioactivity and Models of the Atom.

Our Year 11 Extension and Year 12 General Science students went to the University of Canterbury as part of their study of Radioactivity and Models of the atom. For half of the day they conducted experiments looking at the activity of different radioactive sources and half-life. The other half of the day was spent interacting with resources from Rutherford’s Den around the history of the atom. They also got to role play Ernest Rutherford's famous "Gold foil" experiment. The University staff also put on a great show with various physics demonstrations such as levitating magnets using liquid nitrogen, van der Graaf, bed of nails and hovercraft (all very useful for later topics) before getting a tour of the Physical Sciences departments to look at applications of Physics/Science. This included a visit to the new laser lab, to learn about current research in this area.