Re: [Phys-l] simulations, was ADVICE ON LAB EQUIPMENT

[Bernard Cleyet <bernardcleyet@redshift.com>]

My point,  much more detail and better expressed by ME.

Here's my story:  when I ws demonstrating at the U of Nairobi, the Swede 
(paid by the Swedish govt.) teaching there wrote a scathing report on 
the lack of the general physical adeptness.  The example I remember is 
the mechanician's replacing the vanes in a forepump misassembled it, 
ruining it.  Being, figuratively, in the sticks, it took some time to 
get a replacement.  Fortunately, I was the only one in Kenya to read it, 
as it was a bit impolitic.  It was his effort to improve staff technical 
skills and an appeal to the Swedish govt. for help.  A few years later I 
received a card from another African country where he was teaching.

bc, sorry to have not kept in contact -- we visited the local game park 
together, etc.

p.s.  At least at the U.   (1972), they were doing good instructional 
lab work.  I only remember three xpts.:  Index of refraction of air 
(evacuated tube and interferometer), the current balance w/ parallel 
wires, and a spectroscopy xpt. -- I remember showing how to collimate etc.

Edmiston, Mike wrote:

> A story about lack of actual lab experience.
>
> Over the past three decades I have taught a number of students from
> various countries in Africa, most of whom went through a British
> educational system.  Without money, space, and supplies for labs the
> education they had was essentially all "book-learning."  The book
> learning was often very good, and these students often write better and
> speak better than my traditional students.  But their lab skill are
> often really bad, and there can be a pretty strong "disconnect" between
> what they know fact-wise and how they interpret those facts
> "real-world-wise."
>
> In a modern physics lab a junior student from Kenya picked up a lead
> brick being used for shielding and nearly dropped it.  He was absolutely
> floored at the weight of the thing.  He exclaimed, in beautiful British
> accent, "My goodness! What is this thing?"  I responded that it was
> lead.  He asked why it was so heavy.  I asked him if he knew the density
> of lead.  He responded, "Lead... Atomic number 82, atomic mass 207,
> density 11. But why is it so heavy?"
>
> He essentially had most of the periodic table memorized, and knew many
> physical properties of elements by heart.  But he didn't have any
> experience of what density meant in the real world.  He had never done
> any density experiments nor had he handled a variety of different types
> of materials.
>
> These students are also bothered by errors in their experiments.  They
> might repeat a lab several times hoping to get the error down to near
> nothing when that particular experiment routinely yields 10% error.
> Some are so troubled by data that don't fit theory perfectly that they
> resort to fudging the data in order to get perfect results.  That
> behavior is particularly alarming.  Oh that I could blend these students
> with the traditional students who are sloppy, get 20% error, and say,
> "Oh well, that's the way it came out."
>
>
> Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D.
> Professor of Chemistry and Physics
> Bluffton University
> Bluffton, OH 45817
> (419)-358-3270
> edmiston@bluffton.edu
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