Don’t touch it!

Students from Woodlands School making holograms.

When you’re 13 – and full of curiousity - it’s difficult to follow instructions – at least that’s what I learnt yesterday doing a holography workshop with a group of school children from the Hundred of Hoo School in Rochester. I had been invited by their Head of Science (in my capacity as Schools Outreach officer at the School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southampton) to run a couple of holography workshops during the school's Sci-art festival.

The whole school had a theme of ‘habitats’ to work with and all subjects and lessons were loosely based on the theme. There was an atmosphere of great excitement among students and staff because of the festival. I was there to teach the students about ‘light’ which is, after all, an important part of our habitat.

I brought in a holography rig - made by Mike Anderson – I call it the Martini holography rig - (any-time, any-place anywhere!) – with Slavich plates (PFG -03 and Integraf’s JD 4 developer) however we struggled to get good results. There was a drama workshop going on upstairs and we couldn’t stop the banging, crashing and chair scraping during our 25 second exposures.

I haven't worked with Year 8 students before - and it showed - the 18, 13 year-olds ran rings around me, however we did have a lot of fun. I asked the students to think of themselves as giants – every step they took and even their breath causing enormous vibrations. I asked them not to touch the table at the front of the classroom where the holography rig was set up – well they were so curious that I had to ask repeatedly for them not to touch the table. ‘No, really, don’t touch the table!’ ‘Step away from the table!’

We did eventually get satisfactory results – by removing ¾ of the students to a computer room where they worked on putting together posters on holography.


It’s useful to have two classrooms to work in while making holograms – one where the students can dry the holograms, while the others are shooting. Schools in England have the following materials that they can provide without any trouble – black paper, distilled water, overhead projector, scissors, black electrical tape and hair driers galore. I asked the students to cut black squares for themselves to act as backgrounds for their holograms to protect the emulsion.

This was an invaluable experience for the holography workshops with students next week on the last day of the conference. As I do holography workshops on my own, I need a supporting activity for the holograms - one which a teacher can help younger students with in an adjacent room while they wait for the holograms to be completed…..any ideas gratefully received!