It’s Elementary!
Light and Optics for Kids
WS-1142SPIE – Optics and PhotonicsSan Diego, CA
Teaching Young Students
• Ages 6-12• Light is a fantastic phenomenon for young kids
– Familiar, engaging, complex • Break it down, back to basics
– Your knowledge can work against you…– Know where to start and what you want to leave
students with– Laying a foundation
Content• Concrete
– Visible Spectrum– Experiential, kinesthetic
• One or 2 Big Ideas at a time– Light allows us to see and originates from a
source– Light travels in a straight line and spreads out – White light is made up of many colors, you can
make new colors by combining colors– Light interacts differently with different materials
Content Cont.
– Shadows are created when light is blocked or absorbed
– Shadows change shape and size when the position of the light or the object changes
– Light Bends as it passes from air into another medium– The shape of a lens determines how light bends– Light bounces and follows a strict rule about how it
bounces
Process
• Experience• Explore• Experiment
Move from experience to ideas
Experience
• What do they already know or have experience with?
• How do you know what they know? • Foundation – create a common experience• With experience comes misperception
– White light is colorless, “clear”– Only shiny objects reflect light– Shadows are “things” or objects
Explore
• Interactive, hands on unstructured time• Messy is GOOD!• What they figure out on their own will be
– The most interesting to them, the hook– The most enduring… they will remember it!
Experiment
• Add structure• Introduce a focused question• Record Observations• Quantify Observations• Change a variable
Classroom Cave• Classroom conversation
– You need light to see and light comes from a source
• Activity– Build a very dark space and allow students to
explore it.– Hide the dolls and invite students to predict
which ones they will find without a light source– Send them to test and record their findings– Send them in with a light source
Classroom Cave• Reinforces
– Light is required to see– Light originates from a source
• Gives a concrete experience of SEEING light that is reflected
• Predict, test, try again, conclude!!• Addresses the misconception: Only shiny objects reflect light
Follow the Beam!
• Light travels in straight lines• Light “spreads out” as it moves further
away and “condenses” as it gets closer• Give students some time to explore before
you hand out the worksheets and/or give specific instructions.
• Pose the question: How does light travel?
Light and Color• New experience of “white light”• May contradict their
understanding of color based on pigments (paints)
• FUN!!!!• Extension: sort the m&m’s…• Addressed the misconception:
White light is colorless and clear
Light and Materials
• Plenty of exploration time – let them play
• Don’t get hung up on vocabulary and definitions
• Other materials?? • Class discussion
Shadows
• Misconception: Shadows are objects
• Shadows are formed when light is blocked
• Shadows change shape and size as the relative position between the light source and the object changes.
Light BENDS!
• Kinesthetic model
• Refraction = bending
• Bending is caused by slowing down
Lenses Bend Light• Different shapes bend light in
different ways
• Start with exploration
• Introduce terms: concave and convex
• Follow the worksheet
• Share findings
• Draw conclusions
Light Bounces
• Reflection
• Exploration with the lights
• Structured Kinesthetic Activity
Light Everywhere!
• Light is all we see– From a Light Source– Reflected from a surface
• Constructing their own questions and conclusions– Can also be a beginning– Is the foundation of becoming a
STEM professional!
