The Magiscope was an attraction at Manchester’s department store in Madison, WI, in 1939 that allowed children to peek into Santa’s workshop (as shown in Fig. 1). The “magiscope” was a telescope-like device that gave children the illusion they were looking at a distant Santa, when in fact they were looking at a fabricated workshop on an upper level of the department store. In this article, we describe how we used the puzzle of the magiscope as a final assessment for our optics unit in an introductory physics course.
References
1.
J.
Steinhoff
, “Lost Madison: A Facebook Page Revives the City’s Magical Past
,” Isthmus
(July
17
, 2014
), a http://www.isthmus.com/daily/article.php?article=43203 on June 11, 2015.2.
“
Manchester’s Magiscope
,” Lost Madison Facebook page
, https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.394916373916441.92986.339942466080499&type=3, accessed on June 11, 2015.3.
NGSS Lead States
, “Next Generation Science Standards: For States, By States” (National Academies Press
, Washington, DC
, 2013
).4.
National Research Council
, A Framework for K-12 Science Education
(National Academies Press
, Washington, DC
, 2012
).© 2017 American Association of Physics Teachers.
2017
American Association of Physics Teachers
AAPT members receive access to The Physics Teacher and the American Journal of Physics as a member benefit. To learn more about this member benefit and becoming an AAPT member, visit the Joining AAPT page.