Spreading Optics in the primary school

Abstract

The USC-OSA is a student chapter located at the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) whose objective is to bring optics and photonics knowledge closer to general public. In order to arouse kids' interest in Optics we developed an activity called Funny Light. This activity consisted on a visit of some USC-OSA members to a several local primary schools where we organized several optics experiments. In this work we present the optics demonstrations and the reaction of the 6 years-old students. The activities with greater acceptance include an explanation of light properties as polarization, refraction or reflection, and the workshop where they learnt how to build their own kaleidoscope and made a chromatic disk. Besides, they also participated in a demonstration and explanation of color properties and some optical illusions. We think that this activity has several benefits including spreading Optics through children meanwhile they have fun and experiment science in real life, as well as helping teachers to explain some complex properties and Physics phenomena of light. Given the broad acceptance of this activity, we are intending to make it a routine event of our student chapter repeating it every year.