User:Bthalhamer
From MariachiWiki
My name is Brian Thalhamer. I graduated from West Islip High School in 2003 and now I am in the Masters in Arts of Teaching (MAT) program at Stony Brook University. I completed my Bachelors of Science in Physics here at Stony Brook as well. I will be graduating in the Spring of '08 with my teaching degree and hopefully will start teaching on the island somewhere later that year.
To the left is a picture of me while I was traveling through Europe this summer. This particular picture was taken in Athens, Greece where I was on the Acropolis. To the left you'll see Zeus' Temple or whatever is left of it. I also went to Munich, Salzburg, Budapest, and Rome. I definately recommend a trip to Europe for everybody to do at least once because it's a great experience. I liked it so much, I plan on going back again next year.
Labs
Here are some labs that I made over the past summer for teacher's to use in the Mariachi Lab. They include an introduction to error in a practical setting lab and a couple of discovery labs where students will use their results to make hypotheses of the physics behind them. The Mariachi Lab is a perfect setting for these kinds of labs because even though the results of these labs are important, the general explanations behind them are relatively simple.
The Error lab should take 45 minutes to complete. It can be split up into two labs according to Part I and Part II. Part I is on the qualitative aspect of error, so it is a good introduction. The second part of the lab is on quantitative error. It is a good way for students to use a practical situation to calculate error and be able to graph it.
Errorlabteach Teacher's Guide to the Error Lab
The Angles Lab is good for students to apply data to achieve a theoretical understanding. They will discover through their results how and why cosmic rays depend on angle as a result of thickness of material. The lab should take about an hour to complete.
Angleslabteach Teacher's Guide to the Angles Lab
This lab introduces the students to the idea of flux and how it is related to the distance between scintillators. Students also measure the velocity of light in a creative way that introduces them to the oscilloscope. They should discover that these cosmic rays travel at about the speed of light.
Fluxlabteach Teacher's Guide for Flux and Velocity Lab
This link isn't for high schoolers, although they can use it as an introduction to cosmic rays and how measurements are taken in the Mariachi Lab. This link is geared toward undergraduate students, who should read this over to understand cosmic rays and how the equipment works, as well as how to use Microsoft Excel. These students should thenbe able to jump into creating their own experiments.
