Education Demonstration Equipment
Abstract
The General Atomics fusion education program ``Scientist in the Classroom" (SIC) now in its sixth year, uses scientists and engineers to present plasma as a state of matter to students in the classroom. Using hands-on equipment, students see how magnets, gas pressure changes, and different gases are turned into plasmas. A piston, sealed volume, and vacuum chamber illuminate ideal gas laws. Liquid nitrogen is used to explore thermodynamic temperature effects and changes in states of matter. Light bulbs are excited with a Tesla coil to ionize gases, thus becoming an inexpensive plasma devices and a plasma tube shows magnetic interactions with plasma. The demonstration equipment used in this program is built with simple designs and common commercial equipment keeping in mind a teacher's tight budget. The SIC program ( ∼25 school presentations per year) has become very popular and has acquired an enthusiastic group of regular teacher clientele requesting repeat visits. In addition, three very popular and successful ``Build-It" days, sponsored by the General Atomics Fusion Education Outreach Program, enables teachers to build and keep in their classroom some of this equipment. The demonstration devices will be presented along with their ``build-it" details.
- Publication:
-
APS Division of Plasma Physics Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- October 2003
- Bibcode:
- 2003APS..DPPGP1004N