School Visits and Outreach
We have frequent visits
from school science classes, whom are given a tour of oceanography and
taste of experimentation. Video taped demonstrations have been developed
for schools and televised science (e.g., 'The Big Chill', a climate programme
on BBC-2, August 1999).
A Model of Earth‘s Climate. We are faced with
big changes in the environment, and particularly rainfall, storminess and
temperature, in the coming decades. This is a side view of the overturning
circulation of the ocean, driven by the cold of the polar regions. It is
in some danger of slowing down due to global warming.
A salty jet. School children are
surprised to see 'invisible' flows, here dense plumes entering the top
of the fluid. Learning a little optics and a little physics is fun,
providing they can get a bit wet in the process. Young classes are
filled with 'natural' scientists, but at high-school age most kids have
turned away from natural science.
Magnetic Fluid. The black fluid is magnetized
by the white sphere and is attracted to it. We model the earth's
gravity field this way and it also makes a crazy strange physics for kids
to experiment with.
Viscous circulation. By using very
viscous fluid we can demonstrate the basic physics of cloudiness and rain:
the fluid in the circulating flow is drawn toward the center near a rigid
boundary and creates vertical motion away from the boundary. This
leads to cooling and cloud condensation in an atmospheric low-pressure
center, perhaps the most useful result of all 'weather' theory.