Kiwi Particle Physicist

March 31, 2006

Freyberg

I popped in to Freyberg, my old high school, for a visit yesterday. The place has changed a bit since I was last there, it's bigger with lots of new classrooms, but it still feels familiar. It was good to see all my old teachers again too.

My chemistry teacher took me into his Year 12 class to introduce me and then asked me to give a little impromptu talk about what I'm doing on the experiment. To begin with I wasn't quite sure how to go about explaining everything, so I sort of stumbled for the first few minutes, but after that the students all started to get involved and asked lots of good questions. It was more of a two-way discussion than a speech, which made it a lot easier to figure out what to talk about. The students all seemed fairly interested, and I managed to keep their attention for about 30 minutes, so it must have gone all right.

It's always difficult trying to explain what you're doing to other people, whether it's other physicists or family. You have to aim the explanation at exactly the right level, otherwise you're wasting everyone's time. Hopefully it's something I'll get better at with a bit more practice.

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