Thanks to the invaluable help of Katharina Holzweber (in the picture) and Sabine Puchberger, the workshop organised by the Junior Science Club was a great success (and very fun as you can tell from the photo!). First, the kids learnt the difference between amorphous and crystalline structures.
This aspect of the inner structure of materials affects not only the way different materials look and feel, but also their sound! We played a quiz prepared by Sabine, in which we were able to distinguish and classify different kinds of physical phenomena based on the sound they produce alone.
Finally, we placed ourselves in the grid prepared on the floor of the room (as atoms in a crystalline disposition would do) and began to dance guided by the music, which played the role of the temperature. So, if the temperature would slowly decrease, our very particular 'atoms' would have more than enough time to slow down and find a nice spot in the grid. If the temperature (music) was to decrease abruptly, however, the atoms would be stopped there where they were dancing and the resulting would be a much less 'ordered' disposition of atoms, such as the ones present in amorphous materials.
