Learning by playing: how to create the perfect learning game for and with optics

Abstract

For children, playing and learning is often one thing. They learn while playing and by playing the right games they learn a lot. It is therefore obvious that we should use (among other things) games in order to fascinate children for optics and to teach them the basic laws of optics. In this contribution we will introduce different optical games for children in preschool and elementary school. The majority of commercial learning games on the market do not achieve the ambitious goal of leading to fun and knowledge since very often there are serious design flaws within these games. We introduce ten design rules for learning games that will enable you to create your own successful learning game for a special topic. Exemplary, we will show games based on and for color mixing and polarization. © 2010 SPIE.