Experimenting like Isaac Newton

Showing electric charge with lycopod spores? Charge a resin cake with animal fur? See the rainbow in not entirely pure prism glasses? For the Science Center Spectrum in Berlin, we developed and designed a historical student laboratory. Here, children and school classes can relive “milestones” in the history of science – under the conditions of that time.

Historical Experiments at the Historical Site

The laboratory is modelled on the workplaces of research legends such as Isaac Newton, Georg Christoph Lichtenberg and Alessandro Volta. Reproductions of the original experiments and instruments, such as an electrophorus or Newton’s prisms, are on the laboratory tables and may be used. Furthermore, there are letters and sources in which researchers describe their discoveries. The children slip into the role of these researchers and not only see the physical experiment itself: they experience the groundbreaking moment of discovery.

Electricity and Optics

The two thematic key topics in the student laboratory, which is oriented as an extracurricular place of learning to the framework plans of the 5th – 10th grade, are electricity and optics. The free experimentation deepens the contents of the Spectrum. In the historical ambience children and teenagers can identify with the research personalities, dive into their professional world and get a first impression of the scientific work.