Physics in the main role (principal researcher Doc. PaedDr. Jana Škrabánková, Ph.D. from the Department of Physics) is a project that aims to deepen the interest in physics among talented secondary school students. In biophysics, we offered a total of five activities – (i) an introductory lecture containing the research topics of our group, (ii) separation methods, (iii) photosynthesis, (iv) secondary metabolites, (v) optical spectroscopy, which took place from June to September.
On 6-8 and 13-15 September 2023, via the University PRO project, visits to selected second grade classes of primary schools from Ostrava and the surrounding area took place several times. Pupils completed a total of 3 workshops at the workplace of experimental biology, geography and biophysics. In the biophysics department (which, according to our experience, is initially the least attractive), the students tried to extract plant dyes from different types of plants and then separate them using the chromatography method. In addition, the pupils learned about the existence of secondary metabolites of plants and had the task of identifying several extracted ones by smell. The last activity was a demonstration of fluorescent and phosphorescent substances, which are used not only in the laboratory, but also in everyday life – where the students pipetted the visually attractive fluorescein into water with automatic pipettes and observed its diffusion and the hydrodynamic behavior of this mixture. Based on the students’ feedback, the biophysics workshop was very enjoyable, it dispelled their fears about practical physics (e.g. demanding calculations), and very often the students named our workplace the best of the ones they visited. We thank you and we believe that at least some of them will go on the path of studying natural sciences in the future, if not directly biophysics.
Biophysics team – University of Ostrava
