Abstract

We encourage primary school students in the grades 4–6 to challenge themselves on exploring light in everyday life. At the beginning, we bring in the critical-thinking approach where we use open-ended questions in applications of photonics around them. Later on, we engage them to our photonics lessons via our “Long Len” photonics kit. With our educational kit, we observe that most students in 21 schools from different parts of Thailand are amazed about photonics. They try to play with our kit in their ways, enjoy learning with their friends, and give us back many interesting questions. Based on their evaluations on our approach, 90–98% of them understand more about topics they already know. They also gain new knowledge and can see how it is applied to everyday life. The remaining percentage relates to students who are shy to interact with us.

© 2009 Optical Society of America