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Assistance Needed



AAPT received the following request. Please contact Keith directly if you
can be of assistance.

--------------------------------

Greetings:

I am a visiting instructor at a college in Haiti. Our college is trying
to
establish a Physics program for the 2000-2001 school year. Our students
have had a minimum of second year calculus, but have had no hands-on
experience in any of the sciences except microscopy. The average income
in
Haiti is <400 American dollars per year and our tuition is only ~300
American dollars per semester. I am seeking sponsors and donations. We
need money, of course, but what I am really looking for is old lab
equipment. I need things like balances, force tables, pulleys, optical
benches, ripple tanks, inertia and spring balances, vacuum pumps and bell
jars, diffraction gratings and lasers. I think you get the idea.

Education is the best and perhaps only hope for the children of Haiti, the
most impoverished nation in the Americas. Our students study English,
French, Latin and Greek as well as their native Creole. Instruction is
given in French, so we also need French language textbooks and software.
We are concentrating on building a Physics program for several reasons:
(1) Our students have excellent math skills. (2) Physics lab equipment is
durable and doesn't have to be replaced often. (3) Experimental and
calculated results usually show close agreement. (3) Physics is the basis
for many other disciplines as well as a tool for teaching problem-solving
and building analytical skills. (4) Also because I and the president of
the college love Physics.

Can you help me at all? Can you refer me someone who can? On my last
trip
to Haiti I took about $30,000 worth of microscopes and other equipment
donated by the University of Tennessee and our local community college.
Any and all suggestions are welcome. Thank you. Bon jour.



Keith Waggoner
MS 6384, Bldg. 7920
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Oak Ridge, TN 37831
865-574-7071 phone, 865-576-6312 fax, 865-417-6493 pager