I visited Loreto Kirribilli again today to meet with the four Year 9 students I am mentoring. Since the previous meeting, the science coordinator had sent me some questions the girls wanted to know more about:
- Does thinking of electrons in clouds (as briefly discussed two weeks ago when I mentioned that the model of electrons as tiny particles they were being taught was not the most accurate model) rather than as small particles have any impact on understanding chemical interactions?
- How did we discover these details of atoms?
- Explain the effect that when astronomers look back to the distant universe, objects can appear larger than if they were closer.
I prepared some answers and some images to show the students on my iPad, and went through those in the meeting today, also drawing a lot of diagrams and sketches on the whiteboard. We started with some discussion of the philosophy of science, and how it builds models and refines them over time to account for more complicated phenomena. Then put this into context with the atomic models we were discussing. And finished with an explanation of the galaxy size effect.
The students were very interested and engaged, although I did most of the talking. Hopefully as they get more used to our meetings they will open up more and the discussions can be more two-way. I feel today’s meeting was more successful than the previous one.
I picked up Scully from my wife’s work on the way home and we drove over to Naremburn for lunch at Cornucopia bakery. I had a Moroccan lamb pie and a small chocolate cake since I felt like spoiling myself a bit.
This afternoon my wife had to deal with a bit of a family health issue, which I don’t want to go into any details about here. But it meant I was rather distracted all afternoon, waiting to hear news and for her to come home. She was home in time for dinner and I made spaghetti with a tomato and fennel sauce.
While I was in the middle of the mentoring lesson at the school, our new neighbours next door phoned me, but I let the call go to voicemail, and then I was too distracted to ring back until after dinner. They are inviting us over on Saturday evening for some pre-dinner drinks and to socialise a bit, which is very nice of them. We’ve accepted, so will head over there on Saturday.
New content today: