European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - December 27, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse Tuesday december 27, 19b8 the stars and stripes pass 9 class gets a Rise from superconductor by and Effie Bathen Norn Borg Bureau Forth. West Germany it flies. Ful it s not n Birdil s not a plane. It s a superconductor. And number High school die misery teacher Ann Kryns had her students make one with pan found around town. What it All boiled Down 1o was watching a by acc disk he size of a Quarter to see Tea dime store Magnet would Rise up a Quarter Inch from the Bottom of a plastic foam cd p. Ltd id. Scientists say superconductors arc hot stuff a Normal conductor Copper wire for instance moves and channels electricity in. Much the same was autobahn wove and Channel Auto traffic. But Copper slows Down the electricity in s carrying just like Road friction a if resistance Ami runic jams keep aul Ohahn cruisers from burying . A super conductor is just that. Super. Super fast and super Ilick. It s like driving greased Down. Bull i shaped car on a Lellon autobahn. Ai their cocktail parties futurists also like to talk about Zephyr trains that float on a Cushion of superconductivity and about personal computers the Sie of u i to Swatch. The problem is. Superconductor have lube cold. Super cold. I hat s How they Wink. When fooled to Ultra frigid temperatures most of nature just naturally sup icon ducts. At the right temperature even clip per wire could super Coluci. How col about 459.67 degrees below Zero on the fahrenheit scale or what s known As absolute Zero a Point where it s so cold that everything even molecules freeze solid. Reaching absolute Zero is hard and so expensive thai it would probably multiply your Light Bill thousands of limes. And so the holy grail for superconductor gurus is something that will work at room tempera Ture. The quest took them to Yea Udo 1-20. This stuff was invented of attn ago and it super conducts at a Mere 584 degrees below Zero still cold enough to make your Leith fall out but a lot warmer than absolute Zero scientists reckon that yttrium 1-2-3 is As important to superconductors As the. Wright Brothers la Rel Kitty Hawk gliders were to the future of aviation yttrium 1-2 3 May not f y. But it s a big big jump in the right direction. Suddenly pictures of Little floating magnets appeared in around the world. In 1987,superconductors made the cover of time map finc. The Vord Someth Estepan cropping up in the cock Tail party conversations of Normal people. Then Ann Kuchs. The chemistry teacher at numbers found out How easy it is to make the stuff. You can even order a kit for about $15, but the kit sounded too easy so Kribs and her class of five 11 students decided to go in alone. The chemicals were simple enough. They Cou id be ordered from a Catalon. They also needed an oven that could get 950 degrees hot and a coolant that could get minus 2h4 degrees cold. They needed a Mold that could put their yttrium com Pound under a pressure Pound per Square Inch. And they needed analytical geometry and calculus. From the local dental command Krebs harrowed a Kiln ordinarily used for Mak ing Ceramic smiles. From the dermatology clinic she managed to get a thermos of liquid nitrogen commonly used in removing enough. A major Piirto of the project was to de sign the disk and the Mold to press in. Unfortunately the two seniors and three juniors did nut know enough math to do the calculations. Krebs turned to the a distil principal. L in Torrey a former Phi Sci teacher. He gave them i crash course in analytical Geo Metry and calculus enough to come up with specifications for the local military Mir . Then the real work began. The class mixed ground pressed Hafeed and cooled the chemicals then baked and cooled the Small Ceramic disk was ready to to tested for superconductivity this consisted of supercooling the disk by pouring liquid nitrogen into their makeshift pct i dish actually the Bottom Ofa plastic foam cup. If their calculations were Correct their disk would generate an electromagnetic Field Strong enough to repel a Smalt Magnet. But Success was elusive. The first time they tried it. The manic Lay there like a Rock. had a crack. They went Back to the draw ing Board about a week later they tried again. The liquid nitrogen was poured of but the Magnet remained at rest. Student Larry had will tried one More Lime but wound up pouring on Loo much to spilled and danced in bends across the table in a White moment later the Magnet Rose up in the Hae. 11 stayed there levitating. Hut at first everyone was so wrapped up in the second failure that they did l notice. Suddenly Broadwell looked at it and Sas Vrain Chi of Michelle Rodriguez a student at numb crr i tilth school watch my incl Noil in an invisible magnetic Field created by a superconductor. Said Man 111 is thing s working Krebs said the class was speechless amazed at the Little bit of Metal floating units invisible magnetic Pillow. More Imming is a 300 Mph train Laai ing several inches its track Able to Jed sup Frasl on its super Slick conductor. Magnetic levitation from superconductors is. Already making this a reality Kreh Saij. Her students plan to continue their re search with the yttrium compound work ing Wilh a vacuum and trying different shapes. This suits their teacher Fine. Maybe. They la finally have 10 use their calculus. Education saw Little Reform in 88 by the new York times in 1988, the movement to restructure american schools was seen to be virtually Al a standstill. Those who closely monitored education this year say the epitaph for 1988 could he Rich in rhetoric but poor in Reform. The year was not without Progress. Rochester n.y., gave teachers new Powers ties along with higher salaries. Nationally teachers salaries have Gronn at twice the inflation rate 10 an average of s28,. The coalition of essential schools headed by Theodore r. Sizer chairman of Brown University s education department helps principals and teach cars restructure their schools with an Eye toward what makes students want to learn -. Education expense like sir say he calf for a restructuring though much talked about was not widely adopted. Most schools Are still structured As they were almost ii Century ago when the factory was the Model Large buildings subdivided into boxes classroom Sand managed by the in High schools students still move from Box to Box sometimes barely known to teachers who Deal with an average of 150 of them a Day. Teachers say they Cope with too much paper work despite Al the paperwork reduction orders Slu Dehls prepare for More tests 10 satisfy state and local authorities who continue to View testing As the Centrepiece of school improvement. The Reform movement has largely bypassed the area of greatest need big City schools. Speaking of the unfinished business of school Reform Ernest l. Boyer president of the Carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching said thousands of Urban students crowd into Dilapi dated buildings and Drift unrecognized from class to class.". But education advocates say the Reform move ment s most serious deficiency May be a Luck of emphasis on children s Early years., the focus remains largely on the High schools. With no National policy for child care and Early childhood education Large numbers of children Are fed into a pipeline leading to failure in school and life several reports released this year said. Educational and child care experts say Rurik Jadv be scenes Are being neglected. A recent Sursey of Junior High school students found that 7d percent complained of loneliness. ".,. Students get Grants to become teachers Chicago a p fifteen of Chicago s brightest High school seniors arc being enticed into leaching in a corporate sponsored scholarship program. The 15 students introduced last week As Academy of educators scholars will receive a free four year Educa. Lion if they graduate from College and Leach for Al least five years. If they take a leaching Job in Chicago they will receive a s12,000 Bonus. Tire woman i always wanted to be a teacher the program sponsored by the foundation for excellence in teaching is being financed by Kraft int., Arthur Andersen & co., Gate corp. And a number of individuals. The program has the support of the 680,000-Mem bar american federation of teachers which has lob bied Congress for a similar Federal program said spokesman semis try ibid in Washington. The winners can attend one of four schools n9rth Western University in Eyanson. 111., a Caput univer sity in Chicago University of Illinois Chicago or the National College of education
