Upper School AMPP Students Talk Black Holes, Time Travel and the Quantum Realm

Upper School students in Astronomy, Modern Physics and Philosophy had an exciting week sharing their final presentations with the community and learning about the real-life application of physics from a guest speaker. 

At Morning Ex, Science teacher George Austin explained the basis of this unique course as the study of everything in the universe. Students in the class— seniors Malik Crowder, Spencer Koh, Lula Notz and Junior Zoe Polsky—presented on different class topics, including black holes, time travel, quantum weirdness and Loop Quantum Gravity. The students pulled in pop culture references, such as the movie Interstellar and television show Stranger Things, to help explain these complex topics to their Intermediate and Middle School audience. The class also took these presentations to Lower School Science, with 2nd grade students also participating in the learning. 

Their week even featured a visit from Liani Silva, a physics researcher and daughter of Art teacher Kay Silva. Liani is engaged in post-bachelor’s research in applied and fundamental physics at Los Alamos National Laboratory. She explained the lab’s work with neutrinos, the key to revealing unknowns about energy, matter, space and time. She discussed how neutrinos work and the types of detectors that find and study them. Liani also fielded questions from the students, some of which pertained to their final presentations. Students connected Liani’s field work with the theories they had studied in class, and learned more about the ways conducting experiments can test these theories. Liani also spent time with Parker’s Women in STEM Club.

Parker is grateful to Liani Silva for sharing her expertise and experience with students. Visits like these and opportunities for peer-to-peer presentations are just a few of the wonderful benefits of the school’s close-knit JK–12th grade community. Parker thanks the students in AMPP for sharing their knowledge of the universe!

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