STEM/SCIENCE: Hands on investigations in sources of LIGHT

When you purchase and download this resource, you will receive an 18 page booklet. It includes all you need to achieve success in exploring light within your classroom.

This project is aimed at developing both skills in STEM/SCIENCE learning alongside team work skills, problem solving, cooperation and communication skills, within a meaningful scenario.

The booklet includes:

• Cover Page
• Contents and resources
• Aims of the project and instructions for setting up the activities/rules for children to follow
• 13 Hands on investigations into Light
• Group Completion checklist and learning record
• Certificate to mark success, the end of the project and celebrating taking part.

The aims of the project have been identified as:

Social skills

• Develop the skills of co-operation
• Improve communication skills
• To support one another to reach a shared goal
• To delegate tasks
• Discuss issues and solve problems as they arise
• Have fun in achieving the outcome and support the development of new friendships

STEM skills

• Understand how light travels
• Investigate different sources of light – natural and man-made
• Investigate resources to learn more about light and colour
• Solve a range of problems through applying scientific knowledge
• Know, and be able to find the colours of the spectrum of light by creating rainbows

Skills and knowledge in LIGHT explored through the 13 activities are:

1. Can you catch a Rainbow? Refracting light with water
2. Can you discover a rainbow? Refracting light with prisms
3. What color is your felt pen? Chromatography
4. Be like Superman and look through a brick. Light travels in straight lines and can be manipulated into specific directions
5. Design a periscope - Light travels in straight lines and can be reflected
6. Making the longest and shortest shadows
7. Secret messages - Using colored filters to show how we see color
8. Create your own light source - electrical circuits - man made light
9. Transparent, translucent and opaque
10. Natural and Man-made light sources
11. How do candles burn - chemical changes and physical changes
12. Ultra-violet light -which color reacts best/brightest under UV light. Why could this be useful?
13. Shadow hand puppets - creating the strongest shadows

The 13 activities each have their own activity card which includes the following:

• Activity number so that children can identify which they have completed and which they still need to complete
• Apparatus required to support organisation
• Aims of the activity
• Diagram (if required) to support completion
• Key learning questions: What did you discover? Why?

Other resources in this product also include a checklist for children to check off when they have completed an activity, along with space for their learning, thinking and reflecting on the science behind what they have seen.

There is also a celebratory certificate for children to have once they have completed all 13 activities.

We think this is a great start to the topic of light. It is fast paced and really keeps the children's interest in all of the short focused investigations. We found that our children learnt a lot in a short amount of time and this was then used to support further teaching and learning within the topic of light.

Thank you for visiting our store and viewing our resources. 

Best wishes

INSPIReducation