05 March 2000

San Salvador, El Salvador: Each week, more than 600 people stream into the Stephen Hawking Museum in El Salvador's capital, San Salvador, to see a UN Volunteer in action. Spanish physics professor José Maria Martín captivates visitors by explaining how physics -- abstract as it may sound -- fits into everyday life.

Visitors, many of whom are school or university students, find out more about how magnetism, gravity and electricity work. Using simple explanations, the UNV patiently demonstrates the cause and effects of physical phenomena.

José Maria Martín teaches students how to guide visitors through the museum so that they can communicate to society and in particular school children the importance of science and technology for a developing country like El Salvador. He also trains secondary school teachers so they can try out the physical science and chemistry experiments with their own students. Some 300 teachers have come to see him for this special service over the course of one year.

One of his tasks is to show students that physics isn't boring after all. And to do that he uses junk -- from home or rubbish heaps -- to design his experiments. As an example of his pop-junk-science, he takes an old plastic bottle and stuffs a balloon inside to explain Boyle's law on pressure of a confined gas.

The professor is pleased about his experience as a UN Volunteer. "In Spain, a saturated job market for physicists has led me to look for other ways to exercise my professional skills," he says. His assignment in Latin America has given him a meaningful way to continue his work in a new culture and society.

José Maria calls on scientists in other countries to work on similar educational models of scientific and technological development to further promote international exchange in these fields.

He also urges readers to visit the Internet home page of the museum at: http://www.geocities.com/capecanaveral/hall/5046.