eCosmology

How can I explain Quantum Mechanics to a High School class?

I have to make a report in my physics class on quantum mechanics. I need to put it in as simplest terms as possible. Can anyone help me out?

Public Comments

1. make it simple as in simple simple
2. NOPE, good luck with that tho!!!
3. try using examples of things they know, like electric charges, atoms and suff like that, i know it isnt really accurate, but they will get the idae of it. drawing will help a lot.
4. don't bother. Just show them knifes and how to kill a man with one blow. You know, stuff that they're interested in.
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mechanics I would start there -- and with each relevant link id do a small bit on that as well.
6. Explain the two slit experiment. It's weird and accessible and gets you the idea of the same thing being in two places at once. Then you can answer the paradox with the duality of light, which introduces Einstein's idea of the quanta. That also can be explained without math. Then you'll blow their minds with deBroglie matter waves. I think high schoolers would like the idea that this duality of light is there for everything, but the wave part of matter is so tight that it doesn't look like a wave unless you look very close. Uncertainty is more complicated, but interesting enough if you explain it without the math to get high school students interested. We learned the quantum mechanical model of the atom in 8th grade, but I don't know why, it didn't make much sense in 8th grade. We still thought of it as classical, just more complicated than Bohr's model. The idea that light is emited when an electron goes from a higher energy level to a lower energy level is interesting though.