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Professor presents a wizardly approach to science? -
wizarding...relates to science? Summary:
Straight from the Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Professor......you wanna know more.....check it out then!
Article:
Straight from the Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Professor Snape visited Tenaya Middle School Friday morning to give students a Halloweenish lesson in slug slime and spider silk.
Or, it just might have been Christopher Viney, a professor of engineering from the University of California, Merced, donning a black wig - that he ditched after the first spooktacular lesson - and a black cape.
Through slides and a hands-on experiment, Viney showed three classes of sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade students the intricate qualities and properties of certain biological materials, using them as models for innovations that benefit society.
“I want to show them science and engineering is fun, it’s accessible, and that you don’t have to have a Ph.D. to be able to do it,” Viney said. “I hope they’ll engage in some of what’s said and go away with something memorable.”
Part of Viney’s research involves examining the lubricious, glue-like properties of slug slime and the unmatched elastic strength of spider silk.
On Friday, Viney surprised students when he told them spider silk would stop a bullet more effectively than a Kevlar bullet-proof vest. “What’s special about spider silk isn’t so much its stickiness, but its strength,” he said.
The students in Andrienne Kimball’s seventh-grade science class weren’t so surprised by Viney’s costume - they immediately recognized the sneaky character from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. In fact, most of the students raised their hands when Viney asked if they had read the book.
They were, however, taken by surprise at the microscopic slides of a spider’s “business side,” as Viney put it, and a fly’s leg.
“I didn’t know flies had hairy legs,” said Johanna Wilson, 12, who shielded her eyes away from the super spider closeup.
Viney’s visit to Tenaya was part of the university’s outreach program to school-age children.
“It was very interesting, the ways he communicated to us,” said Richard Agama, 13. “He helped me to learn how to do more science. I was bored before.”
