Project 107: Light

This was one of the few projects where we've broken from our usual one-project-per-week approach, and spread it over two weeks. This was because we had a six day trip to the kids' grandparents planned, and wanted to make use of some more of the North East museums. As Joseph Swan, one of the inventors of the light bulb, came from Sunderland, we decided to make Light this week's project. 

As well as the usual pages from the encyclopaedia and science dictionaries, and watching YouTube videos we visited two museums with light related exhibits. The Light exhibition at the Discovery Museum, Newcastle provided an interactive area for engaging with the properties of light, including an infinity mirror, a black mirror, a polarised light spinner, prisms, and cabinets showing the evolution of the light bulb. 

Light at the Discovery Museum, Newcastle

The miner's safety lamp display at the Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens provided another, more practical, perspective on our changing relationship with light over the years.

Safety lamps in Sunderland

The project also provided us with the opportunity to do our own experiments with the reflection and refraction of light:

Refracting light with a glass of water

By far the most visually impressive experiment was splitting light with the prism we bought:

Prism splitting sunlight

Finally, for the craft part of the project, the children followed a YouTube video to make their own kaleidoscopes. 

Solomon's Kaleidoscope

Next project: The Great Fire of London.