Physics Club Wins Blake Lilly Prize

NEW MEXICO TECH PHYSICS CLUB GARNERS PRESTIGIOUS AWARD

by George Zamora

The annual awards recognize SPS chapters throughout the nation which have made "outstanding contributions in physics outreach" and which have demonstrated "genuine efforts to positively influence the attitudes of school children and the general public toward physics," the award guidelines state.

The award was based on the club's ongoing series of physics demonstrations to Socorro area elementary, middle, and high school students and for their major role in installing, establishing, and managing a WeatherNet weather-monitoring system at one of Socorro's schools.

Another of the Physics Club's noted outreach activities this past year included the group's annual paper airplane contest, which is held in April in conjunction with National Physics Week.

"Young people have extremely inquisitive minds and it's very satisfying to help them find answers to their questions," says Jessica Boustead, a New Mexico Tech sophomore and current Physics Club president. "It's a great learning experience for us as well as for all those students involved in the other end. I hope we are planting the seeds of some future physicists along the way."

"When we see the kids jump out of their seats with excitement as we do a really cool demonstration, or when they ask questions about what we're doing and why it works is the best reward we could ever get," adds club member and Tech doctoral candidate Tim Canty, who is a driving force behind the club's paper airplane contests and other educational outreach programs.

Members also noted that the Physics Club has many plans for the coming year, including putting on more physics show for area school children; constructing new demonstration equipment, such as a Van de Graaf generator and a Tesla coil; hosting an SPS zone meeting for New Mexico and Arizona chapters; and, of course, holding another of those popular paper airplane contests.

The Blake Lilly Prize is named in honor of Blake Lilly, a student of physics and an advocate of physics outreach work, who tragically died during his graduate studies.

The Blake Lilly Prize consists of a certificate and a three- volume set of "Feynman Lectures on Physics," a celebrated collection of notes and lectures from Richard Feynman, a highly respected contemporary physicist.