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I wonder what happen when light meets plastic

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I wonder what happen when light meets plastic

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I wonder what happens when light meets human body

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I wonder what happens when light meets human body

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In my sixth creative process, I am exploring what is going to happen when the light would encourage plastic. For this, I have used different plastic materials like plastic containers, plastic bottles, plastic bags, and food containers. And I have passed torch light and sunlight through these, to experience what result I am going to get.

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It is surprising to see different things that we can create through our shadows. Isn't it? Our shadow is with us all the time, whom we ignore all the time. As I was exploring light's encounters with the human body, I was wondering if am I able to make different things with my shadows. Thus, I tried moving my hand in different ways to create different things in my shadows.

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It was interesting to see how few plastic things were letting the light pass through them, whereas, in others, I could see that there is some light on the other end. I observed that light could pass through transparent objects but could not really from opaque ones.

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I wonder what happens when light encounters water

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I wonder what happens when light encounters water

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I wonder what happens when light encounters colourful magnetic blocks

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I wonder what happens when light encounters colourful magnetic blocks

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I wonder what happens when light meets glass

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I wonder what happens when light meets glass

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Exploring things is a form of art that involves an engaging process that is reflective, creative, sensual, expressive, and relational (Pelo 2010). Art can be a way of imagining, thinking, expressing, feeling, and relating (Pelo 2010).  When children encounter a range of materials and art, they explore the beauty and luxury of movement, color, texture, space, and lines (Pelo 2010).

This journal is an inquiry into the movement of light. Light is a natural energy that makes us see things and makes things visible (Light Play 2022). The concept of how light behaves when it travels or passes from different objects or things is quite fascinating. Although, we actually don't realize the movement of light because its speed is way too fast to see with naked eyes. However, we can explore what happens when light moves through different materials.

We will be exploring this concept using different materials like blocks, the human body, plastic, water, and mirror; we will be using movement and visual art as an artistic language.

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In my first inquiry into the movement of light, I am exploring the movement of light through water. I wonder what is going to happen when I pass the light from the water. I have a glass full of water and a torch. I then passed the light through it. I also wonder if I would pass the sunlight through my glass of water, will it give me the same result or not?

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When torch light passes through water, the light bends and I could also see different colors on the other side. It makes me wonder about the rainbow. When I brainstormed, I realized that the rainbow only appears when the sun comes out after the rain. It means when sunlight passes through rain droplets, we see a light being split into 7 colors which we call a rainbow.

Since 1930, conceptions about children regarding clouds and rain have been studied and Piaget too explored this concept, however, there are not many studies regarding the concept of the rainbow. According to Piaget, children learn by taking knowledge from the real world i.e. from their environment, using their senses (Wardle 2009, p. 26). Most children have seen rainbows in real, which would help them to understand the concept of the rainbow with light and water.

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Planning an experience where children could learn about the rainbow would be quite fascinating for children by knowing that what they see high up in the sky (rainbow), can be created by them as well. This would also help them to learn the science behind the concept that how light splits into seven colors when it passes through water.

Children develop more knowledge and accuracy about something through the process of accommodation and assimilation (Wardle 2019, p. 26). Therefore, I would first plan a basic experience where a glass bottle full of water will be taken and sunlight will be passed through it so that children could see colors on the other side on blank paper. It is evident that through this experience, all seven colors will not be clearly visible to children (even in a rainbow we generally see three main colors). Therefore, to extend their knowledge, a further experience will be planned using a prism and flashlight so that they could clearly see all the rainbow colors generated using light. This would help them engage more in inquiry, noticing detail, and observation.

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I love shadow play and I think this is one of those activities which does not require anything but light and one can have fun for hours. We usually see our shadow in the daytime and at night but never really pay attention to it (thinking it is of no use). When I used different hand postures to create shadows, I found that I can actually create numerous things with them. I can make my shadow dance, fly (by making a crow), make it bark (by making a dog), rabbit, duck, and what not.

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In my second inquiry into the movement of light, I am exploring what would happen when the light would meet colorful magnetic blocks. In a dark room, I have passed torchlight through the magnetic blocks. This experience came to my mind to explore the question in mind, can shadows be colorful or they are always black?

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In my third inquiry, I am exploring what is going to happen when light meets glass. Thus, I have passed torch light through glass.

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When light encounters glass, it reflects. Same as when we see ourselves in the mirror, we could see our image in it because of reflection.

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It is a really interesting thing for children to experience transparent, translucent, and opaque things. Therefore, I will be planning an experience by collecting different kinds of objects (plastic (both transparent and opaque), wood, metal, tissue paper, butter paper) so that this concept could be more clear to them and more enjoyable. Then using a flashlight, children will be flashing light through these objects and they will slowly discover how light is able to pass through some objects and from some not.

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As I was exploring the movement of light, shadows, and rainbow and so far I had only got black and white shadows and I was wondering that even if I would use colorful material, I would still get a dark shadow. But I was amazed to see the result this time. When torch light encountered my colorful magnetic blocks, the shadow retained the color of the blocks and at the same time changed their size (turned bigger). I figured that if I would use transparent material (colorful or not), I am going to get the same colored shadow as the material. Even today I wonder about so many things and so young children could have a lot of contradictions about the phenomenon of shadow. Piaget believed that to resolve these contradictions, children should have direct and physical contact with shadows (Wardle 2009).

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As I found through my exploration that light reflects when it encounters a mirror. Reflection is an extremely simple concept and children have started seeing their reflection in the mirror from a very young age. However, what is important to know that do they understand how it is done and whether can they see their reflection without light. And is it possible to see reflection only in glass?
Children are full of curiosity and it would be exciting to have these experiences with children.
Learning should be more of a play, therefore, I would first plan mirror dance only, where music would be played and children would be dancing in front of their mirror. They would be seeing their own and their peer's reflections in the mirror. To extend this experience of reflection, we would be using a tub of water and would see our reflection in it. This would help them understand that we can see the reflection in things other than mirrors as well.
Now, the question remains do we need light to see our reflection?
For this, an experience would be planned in a dark room - with light and without light. When light would be turned on, educator would ask what they can see in the mirror (when they will be standing in front of the mirror) and also when the light will be turned off. This will also help them understand that we need light to see things. When light falls on things, it reflects back and that's how we see things. I would also be discussing natural light i.e. sun and electrical light i.e. bulbs, tubes, torch etc.

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Englehart, D., Mitchell, D., Albers-Biddle, J., Jennings-Towle, K. and Forestieri, M., 2016. STEM Play. [ebook] Gryphon House Inc., p.1. Available at: <https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/vu/reader.action?docID=5332107&query=stem+in+early+childhood> [Accessed 18 August 2022].

2022. Light Play. [ebook] Ipswich: Ipswich Art Gallery, p.2. Available at: <https://www.ipswichartgallery.qld.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/LightPlay-2017-Education-Resource.pdf> [Accessed 17 August 2022].

Pelo, A., 2010. The Language of Art. [ebook] Redleaf Press, p.1. Available at: <https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/vu/reader.action?docID=4674378> [Accessed 18 August 2022].

Thornton, L. and Brunton, P., 2010. Exploring Light and Dark with Early Years - Teaching Expertise. [online] Teaching Expertise. Available at: <https://www.teachingexpertise.com/articles/exploring-light-and-dark-with-early-years/#:~:text=Playing%20with%20light%20and%20dark%20creates%20magical%20experiences%20that%20both,Dowling%20terms%20'gratuitous%20fear> [Accessed 18 August 2022].

Wardle, F., 2009. Approaches to Early Childhood and Elementary Education. [ebook] Nova Science Publishers, Incorporated, p.36. Available at: <https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/vu/reader.action?docID=3020039&query=exploring+materials+in+early+childhood> [Accessed 16 August 2022].

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Experiences that involve light and shadow develop curiosity, fun, and engagement and enable both children and adults to appreciate the wonder around them, and also endless open possibilities for learning (Thornton and Brunton 2010). Playing with light and dark creates a magical experience for children which is quite enjoyable (Thornton and Brunton 2010). So, in order to understand shadows, children need to construct ideas about relationships between light, materials, flat surfaces, and shadow. Therefore, children must be provided with lots of opportunities so that they can investigate these relationships (Wardle 2009, p. 40).

There are numerous experiences that can be created for children so that they can understand the concept of light and shadow and explore it and find play with them. Natural light is all around us and is perfect for children to explore. On a bright sunny day, especially in winters, children can explore shadows of their own or those created by trees, buildings, and bushes (Thornton and Brunton 2010). The experience can be created inside as well by encouraging children to explore shadows by standing in front of the window when the sun is shining in. It would also be interesting to investigate how shadows change shapes or sizes when moving forward or backward. Catching other person's shadow is another interesting play.

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Piaget studied children’s developmental understanding of shadows in the year 1986 and he expressed that a lot can be told about children's thinking by examining their errors (Wardle 2009). To implement an experience where children could explore that shadows can have different colors, I would plan a similar experience in a dark room with colorful transparent objects and a torch. Children would enjoy how shadow takes the shape of each object, how it is having different colors, and how it changes its size when we move the torch closer or far from the object. Further, to enhance their knowledge, I would also plan an experience where I would use a light table and transparent colorful materials, and opaque materials. This would help children to understand the difference between transparent and opaque materials and how light passes through transparent materials but not from opaque.

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I wonder what happens when light encounters art

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I wonder what happens when light encounters art

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I have always believed that art is everywhere and in everything. It is evident that the way the light makes everything visible to us is an art in itself. But can we create our own artwork with light? Thus, to explore this question, I have got crayons, paper, and light. I put some plastic containers on top of each other and my nail paint on top. Then I created art in my artwork with their shadows. It was an amazing experience to do shadow artwork.

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Through this experience, I created my own artwork through light and its shadow. The other thing that I learnt unintentionally from it, that things are not always the same what they look like. Therefore, it is important to investigate what they are made of. From the structure that I had created with containers, actually gave shape of a dome which looked more like a famous building called Taj Mahal. Giving shape of shadow is great form of art that I learnt through this experience.

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Shadow art is the best experience to let children explore shadows, creativity, and art. It is best to do shadow art outside on a sunny day. There are many ways to try this fun experience. The best thing is that we can do this experience with any object as long as the sun is out.  Children can use their favorite toys, trees, leaves, or even themselves and they would just have to outline the shadow of the object.

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If I could summarize this whole experience in one word I would say it was mesmerizing. I could not realize that exploring things that are all around us in everyday life, could be so much fun. Experimenting with light with different materials and discovering what is going to happen then, the curiosity to see whether I am going to achieve an expected result or not; this all made me feel that I was playing with light all the time but at the same time I learned a lot.

Even the focus should be that whatever experiences are planned for children, they should enjoy them and they should feel like they are actually playing a game but unknowingly learning something valuable out of it.

Through this journal, we explored a very interesting science topic in a playful manner, where we learned about shadows, reflection, refraction, transparency, translucent, opaque objects, and art with light. Whether it is STEM or any other subject, there isn't any better way of learning it than experimenting, exploring, and experiencing it by yourself.

According to Dewey, children learn through experiences and he believed that it is not just curriculum that needs to start with the child, but all learning should start from experience (Wardle 2009).  Science is an avenue for children to learn about their world (Englehart et al., 2016). These kinds of initial explorations would provide children with experiences to build new ideas.