Thursday 4th February saw the culmination of the Glebelands School Community Science week with a presentation from Dr Marty Jopson. Dr Jopson is a science presenter on the BBC One Show as well as being a prolific science communicator and author. Dr Jopson spoke on the history of electricity with his show entitled ‘Zap, Crackle and Pop.’
Nearly 300 people in the audience were taken through the timeline of the discovery and taming of electricity, from Thales of Miletus rubbing cats, to the explosion of hydrogen gas created from a spark transferred by his body. Dr Jopson dazzled the audience with recreations of experiments carried out in electrical soirees, as well as using his own homemade tesla coil to light up filament tubes and pretend to be a Jedi Knight from the Star Wars movies.
The students learnt plenty of useful information, including seeing some of the wonders that statics and electricity can create. Dr Jopson got a student up onto the stage and showed the audience what to do in a lightning storm and also used students to model current (both A.C. and D.C.) and voltage using glow balls.
It was a thoroughly enjoyable night aimed at all ages and Dr Jopson was really able to engage with all of the audience. Glebelands School looks to promote the STEM subjects and hopefully inspire the future generations to see the possibilities in these areas and look into a future career in them.
