San Anton Grade 10 (Form 3) physics students were recently inside the Hyperbaric Chamber at Mater Dei Hospital during a visit planned by the school’s Science Department to complement their lessons on pressure.

The chamber is often used to treat divers who develop decompression sickness when they return to surface too quickly. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is also used to heal wounds and carbon monoxide poisoning.

Accompanied by their teachers, the students were able to participate in a 25-minute ‘dry dive’ in the chamber where the principles of Boyle’s Law and other theoretical applications on pressure and temperature were demonstrated. Before entering the chamber the students were briefed by the chamber’s resident medic Dr Stephen Muscat.

During the ‘dry dive’, the chamber was sealed and pressurised, much like an aircraft cabin is when flying, but it was subjected to a slightly greater pressure.

The students took empty bottles of mineral water and blown up balloons into the chamber. As the pressure was increased in the chamber, the students could observe their balloons getting smaller and the bottles getting squashed. At 18m of pressure, they also noted that their voices changed due to the higher density.

Towards the end of the ‘dry dive’ the students blew up another balloon, and as pressure decreased, it expanded and eventually burst.

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