User:Spiro Liacos

Spiro Liacos is the co-founder of Liacos Educational Media, whose ground-breaking Shedding Light series of programs for secondary school students has been a godsend for science teachers trying to teach the topics of Light and Chemistry. He still teaches part time at Cheltenham Secondary College (where he shows his own videos to his students!). The Shedding Light on Light series covers the topic of light, while the Shedding Light on Atoms series covers the history of the discovery of atoms while teaching students everything they need to know about modern chemistry.

The six programs of the Shedding Light on Light series are listed below.

1. Shedding Light on Reflection (mirrors, images, the virtual 3D mirror world, illusions and more…)

2. Shedding Light on Curved Mirrors (convex and concave mirrors, telescopes, solar cookers, satellite dishes and more…)

3. Shedding Light on Refraction and Total Internal Reflection (optical fibres, light transmission, rainbows, diamonds and more…)

4. Shedding Light on Lenses (magnifying glasses, projectors, film and video, reading glasses, the eye, vision defects and more…)

5. Shedding Light on Colour (the visible spectrum, mixing light, televisions, mixing paints, rod cells and cone cells and more…)

6. Shedding Light on Electromagnetic Waves (radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, X-rays, gamma rays, waves in general and more…)

The eight programs of the Shedding Light on Atoms series are:

1. Shedding Light on Atoms Episode 1: The Dawn of Modern Chemistry (Introduces the concept of elements, compounds and mixtures, and then looks back at the discovery of carbon dioxide and oxygen)

2. Shedding Light on Atoms Episode 2: Oxygen Everywhere (Explores how the discovery of oxygen led to even more discoveries about water and metal oxides, and details much of Antoine Lavoisier's discoveries)

3. Shedding Light on Atoms Episode 3: The Discovery of Atoms (Shows students how compounds are formed when elements combine chemically and how compounds can be broken back down into elements, and shows some of the experiments that led to the Dalton's atomic theory.)

4. Shedding Light on Atoms Episode 4: The Periodic Table (Explores the properties of metals and non-metals, looks at how the discovery of electricity led to the discovery of new elements, and takes a detailed look at how Mendeleev was able to use the trends in the chemical and physical properties of the elements to develop the periodic table.)

5. Shedding Light on Atoms Episode 5: Protons, Neutrons and Electrons (The program looks at atomic structure, the discovery of electrons, and how the discovery of radioactivity led to the discovery of protons and neutrons.)

6. Shedding Light on Atoms Episode 6: Electron Shells (We look at flame tests, spectroscopy, the discovery of electron shells, how the periodic table was modified to reflect the patterns in the way electrons fill electron shells, and we explain how big, or rather, how small, atoms actually are.)

7. Shedding Light on Atoms Episode 7: Covalent Bonding (We look at how the atoms of non-metals bond together with covalent bonds to form molecules, introduce electron dot diagrams and structural formulas, explain how the electron configuration of an atom affects the number of bonds it can make, and finally introduce the topic of organic chemistry.)

8. Shedding Light on Atoms Episode 8: Ionic Bonding (We look at how the atoms of metals bond with the atoms of non-metals with what are called ionic bonds. We show how atoms can gain or lose electrons in chemical reactions involving metals and non-metals, and that the number of electrons gained or lost depends on an atom’s electron configuration. We finish by comparing ionic compounds with covalent compounds, and explain the difference, at the atomic level, between solids, liquids, and gases.

The five programs of the Shedding Light on Motion series are:

1. Shedding Light on Motion Episode 1: Speed (We introduce students to the concept that speed is a measure of how far something travels in a given amount of time.)

2. Shedding Light on Atoms Episode 2: Acceleration (We explain that acceleration is a measure of how quickly something changes its speed.)

3. Shedding Light on Atoms Episode 3: Relative Motion (We introduce students to the concept that the movement of an object is always relative to something else.)

4. Shedding Light on Atoms Episode 4: Graphing Motion (We look at how graphs can help us better understand the motion of athletes and of cars and other things.)

5. Shedding Light on Atoms Episode 5: Graphing Free Fall (We continue looking at graphs but pay particular attention to how graphs help us to understand the motion of objects that are either falling straight down or which have been launched vertically upwards into the air.)

Spiro is also the founder of Meant To Be Musicals through which he markets the two full-length musicals he has written: Meant To Be and Archimedes. You can read synopses etc. and listen to the songs on Meant To Be Musicals' website.

Set in the 3rd-century BC, Archimedes tells the story of Archimedes’s famous eureka moment. The King of Syracuse, suspecting that his goldsmith may have kept some gold that he was given to make a golden crown, asks Archimedes to determine the crown’s purity. The trouble is, Archimedes is engaged to the goldsmith’s daughter… Archimedes debuted with sensational reviews at Cheltenham Secondary College in 2009. The school used the musical as a springboard for a range of cross-curricular activities in Science, Maths, English, Art and Technology. All students from Years 7-10 were involved, making it the school’s biggest and most successful musical ever.

Meant To Be has enjoyed huge success in schools across Australia and New Zealand. Set in the present, it tells the story of Michelle, who falls in love with Adam when she joins his rock band. At the same time, Michelle’s (widowed) dad and Adam’s (single) mum also meet and become romantically involved. The two kids then try to split their parents up, because they are convinced that if their parents get married, they will become brother and sister, and so won’t be able to go out any more.