Perimeter’s outreach team was on the ground in Halifax this past week, bringing cutting-edge science to the classroom. As part of Perimeter’s anniversary celebrations across Canada, the team connected with students and teachers through specialized classroom activities designed to inspire and encourage a love of science and physics.
Free educational resources for students, teachers, and undergraduates
Students got to experience the GoPhysics! program, taking a deep dive into two important topics in physics: gravity and black holes, and exoplanets and the universe. Multiple schools in the Halifax area participated, encouraging their students to grow their curiosity about science and physics.
“The goal is to inspire high school students about science in general, particularly about modern science, space, planets beyond the solar system, gravity, and Einstein's big ideas,” says Damian Pope, Outreach Scientist at Perimeter, who was in Halifax for the occasion. “We say that the best programs leave students having more questions than they came in with, because that’s what scientists do.”
GoPhysics! incorporates interactive elements to spark creativity and hands-on learning. “We have these breakout activities which give students a box and a bunch of locks, along with four or five science puzzles. It's like an escape room in the classroom. We found that to be a very powerful vehicle,” explains Pope. “We really want to blow students’ minds, to build on their curiosity in a deep, hands-on way.”
Perimeter also hosted a teacher workshop series in partnership with Imhotep’s Legacy Academy, a university-community partnership that bridges the achievement gap for Grades 6-12 students of African heritage in Nova Scotia, operating on Dalhousie’s Sexton campus. The workshops gave teachers tools for talking about science, with free educational resources on topics like climate change, the nature of science, and quantum technology. Some teachers drove from over four hours away to attend.
For Pope, the highlight of the series was watching the teachers get excited about science in the same way students do during GoPhysics! “There is one part where we get them standing up and they look at these LED lights, and they see all these rainbow colours,” recalls Pope. “And just seeing them forget they were teachers and tapping into their own natural curiosity. That’s a highlight for me.”
The final stop for Perimeter’s outreach team in Halifax was at Dalhousie University’s mathematics department, where Perimeter postdoctoral Lukas Mueller delivered a research seminar. Hosted by Perimeter Associate Faculty member Theo Johnson-Freyd (who is cross-appointed with Dalhousie University), the seminar focused on graduate programs at Perimeter and research topics in mathematical physics. The presentation was organized by the Undergraduate Physics Society on campus.
Perimeter takes the show on the road
Halifax is the first city on the cross-Canada tour to celebrate Perimeter’s 25th anniversary. Perimeter has many more stops across the country planned to help students and teachers get excited about the future of physics. Armed with lessons and resources developed with leading researchers and educational experts, the programs help students grasp the foundational concepts underlying the biggest questions in physics, from a grand unified theory of gravity to the next stage in quantum technology.
For Pope, who has been an outreach scientist at Perimeter for almost 20 years, the work is about inspiring the next generation of great thinkers.
“I like the questions students have – because often they’re questions that I hadn't thought of. They think about the world in a very different way,” he says. “Some of the big discoveries in physics have come about precisely because young people started thinking about the world differently. We need these new ideas, and this is the next generation of people that will ask those new questions. That's how we make progress.”
You can follow along with Perimeter’s 25th anniversary celebrations all year long here.
About PI
Perimeter Institute is the world’s largest research hub devoted to theoretical physics. The independent Institute was founded in 1999 to foster breakthroughs in the fundamental understanding of our universe, from the smallest particles to the entire cosmos. Research at Perimeter is motivated by the understanding that fundamental science advances human knowledge and catalyzes innovation, and that today’s theoretical physics is tomorrow’s technology. Located in the Region of Waterloo, the not-for-profit Institute is a unique public-private endeavour, including the Governments of Ontario and Canada, that enables cutting-edge research, trains the next generation of scientific pioneers, and shares the power of physics through award-winning educational outreach and public engagement.
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