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Pomona
College Physics Professor Leads Kids on Adventure in
Magnification: Garden Bugs from normal to 100,000 times
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David Tanenbaum, a Pomona College physics professor, will
introduce 20 kindergarten and first-grade students through
the world of magnification on Monday, May 24 (from
10:30-11:45 a.m.) and Thursday, May 28, from 10:30 – 11:45
a.m.
The adventure begins on Tuesday, when Professor Tanenbaum
will travel to their world, visiting Sycamore Elementary
School (225 W. Eighth Street, Claremont), to lead Caroline
Lee’s mixed kindergarten and first-grade class from what
they can see with their naked eye (1x) through the changes
to every day objects when magnified five times, 200 times
and even 100,000 times. The goal explains Tanenbaum “is to
show the kids just how exciting, fun, and interesting
science can be.”
Tuesday, the kindergartners and first-graders will search
their garden for study samples (petals, leaves, dirt, bugs,
sticks, etc.) as well as other things they see everyday. “I
want to encourage them to explore a bit... I’ll read a bit
from a few books to give them some ideas, but I won’t ask
them to find specific things,” says Tanenbaum. Then using 5x
hand loupes, like to those used by jewelers, they’ll examine
their samples from bugs and leaves to the woven fibers in
fabric, or paper. “I’ll ask them to describe what they see
in the form of an analogy, like ‘the scales on the plant
looks like a staircase,’ ‘the paper looks like a bumpy
wall,’ or maybe "my finger print looks like the rings of a
cut tree.’…I also plan to do a simple exercise in defining
the magnification of an object with the video microscope
which can magnify things anywhere from 6x to 600x.”
On Thursday, the group of about 20 children will travel to
Pomona College’s Millikan Laboratory building too see what
some of their samples look like magnified up to 100,000x by
the college’s Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope
(FE-SEM), which arrived on campus only last month. “I am
excited to see what kinds of samples the students will find
and to show them how much more detail they can see under the
microscope. Microscopy is easy to understand, even at their
level.” says Tanenbaum.
Tanenbaum normally teaches General Physics, Advanced
laboratory, Advanced Physics Lab with Seminar, Introduction
to Materials Science, and Physics in Society: A Critical
analysis of Energy Policies, to students who are just a bit
older.
Pomona College, one of the nation’s premier liberal arts
colleges, offers a comprehensive program in the arts,
humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. Its
hallmarks include small classes, close relationships between
students and faculty, and a range of opportunities for
student research. Visit Pomona College on the web at
www.pomona.edu..
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