STEM Optics Workshop, 29 May 2025, Penrith NSW
In this interactive Optics workshop, you will learn to appreciate the magic of colour, mirrors, and shadows through the eyes of a child and explore the pedagogy behind developing child-led inquiry projects in your service or classroom.
This 3.5-hour professional development workshop will give you the confidence to unlock the wonders of STEM in your service through the gateway of optics, develop and facilitate project work, and is a great workshop for educators who are both new and experienced in delivering STEM in early childhood settings.
STEM topic: Optics
In this hands-on workshop, you will learn how to create rich STEM learning experiences and use optics as a topic through which to teach the outcomes of the Early Years Learning Framework. Interactive activities can include:
- Split sunlight in different ways and make rainbows with crystals, soap bubbles, and CDs.
- Follow, catch, and trap your shadow.
- See how far you can “transport” light throughout a dark room.
- Explore reflections in everyday life and discover why some reflections are distorted, magnified, shrunk or even upside down.
- Make your own spying device.
- Build a shadow theatre and play with puppets.
- Investigate the connections between three dimensional objects, their shadows, and make your own sundial.
- Find out how to create and mix different colours of lights.
- Mix colours into brown, and then try unmixing them.
- Learn about binocular rivalry and test your own peripheral vision.
