“Not only is it important to ask questions and find the answers, as a scientist I felt obligated to communicate with the world what we were learning.”
Stephen Hawking
Science is not static. It’s an exciting, ever-evolving field that impacts every aspect of our everyday lives and that will drive incredible social change over the upcoming decades. The general public’s understanding of science should be likewise alive. New concepts, as we discover them, should find their way into classrooms and general media so that people can make informed personal, political, and business decisions. That’s why outreach is an important part of what we do at TMOS.
Out outreach program is an opportunity to share our expertise in physics, engineering and meta-optics with the wider community. Our committee members come from all nodes, allowing us to interact with our community across the country, forming relationships with schools and educational systems. By bringing our knowledge and resources to the classroom, not only are we working to increase interest in STEM, and physics in particular, we are helping our committee members grow as science communicators and educators while getting word of our research out there.
Our program has been designed to entertain and engage young Australians, encouraging them to be future leaders and innovators in STEM careers. Through our workshops, we introduce audiences to the science behind the optics and help them understand the new industrial revolution, their future, Industry 4.0
We have designed three new workshops that address key content descriptors from the Australian National Curriculum and include hands-on demonstrations and real-life examples to build connections between the learning material and everyday life to solidify the concepts being taught. Each workshop is aimed at Year 5 primary school students, offering an alternate learning opportunity for students to better engage with the content.
Outreach committee goals/activities:
- Collaborate with Questacon to hold a science communication training workshop for committee members and practice skills interacting with the general public visiting Questacon for International Day of Light
- Collaborate with Questacon to develop an physics/optics-based exhibition, the “Catalogue of Cool”
- Conduct public outreach activities, including a minimum of 10 school visits over 2023
- Collaborate with Shirty Science to produce 1-2 unique t-shirt designs which reflect the research being undertaken at TMOS
Outreach visits
Our School Workshops
The Past, Present and Future of Light
The audience is introduced to The Story of Light – from antiquity to the future of meta-optics. Learn about the sun, fire, lenses, electromagnetism, refraction, diffraction, interference, photons, lasers and the exciting world of meta-optics. Hands-on demonstrations include being able to replicate some of the historical experiments which led to some of the biggest discoveries in light and learning how to physically show these exciting concepts at home!
Curriculum descriptors:
- Labelled ray diagrams
- Comparing shadows from point and extended light sources
- Classification of materials as transparent, opaque or translucent
- Recognising colour of objects depends on their properties and the colour of the light source
- Using mirrors to demonstrate reflection of light
- Recognising refraction of light at surfaces of transparent materials
- Investigating the use of solar panels
- Understanding the behaviour of light by making observations of its effects
- Exploring reflection, absorption and refraction of light using mirrors, sunglasses and prisms
- Discussing the use of electricity and conservation of sources of energy
“In June 2022, the TMOS outreach team hosted a public event in my hometown of Shepparton in regional Victoria for the International Day of Light. The highly publicised and anticipated event was a huge success, seeing almost 100 people of all ages across the region engage in an immersive and hands-on experience on the story of light.”
Shaban Sulejman, Outreach Committee Alumni, UoM
How-to Holograms
Holograms – how and where they are used in everyday life. Learn about the fascinating light concepts behind the formation of holograms, including reflection, refraction, diffraction and interference! Hands-on demonstrations include the use a laser pointer to visualise the light principles of reflection, refraction and diffraction, seeing hologram printing in action and take home a pair of your own diffraction glasses!
Curriculum descriptors:
- Labelled ray diagrams
- Classification of materials as transparent, opaque or translucent
- Recognising colour of objects depends on their properties and the colour of the light source
- Using mirrors to demonstrate reflection of light
- Recognising refraction of light at surfaces of transparent materials
- Understanding the behaviour of light by making observations of its effects
- Exploring reflection, absorption and refraction of light using mirrors, sunglasses and prisms
The hologram workshop brought the foundational concepts of light to the classroom in an exciting way. We hope this allowed the students to enjoy learning science more, and get them interested to keep pursuing it in the future.” - Neuton Li, Outreach Committee Member, ANU
Discovering Diffraction
Learn about the concepts behind diffraction and where we can observe diffraction in nature and our day-to-day lives. Hands-on demonstrations include the use torchlights, CDs and plastic prisms to demonstrate how light can be diffracted, learn how to use multi-coloured LED finger-lights and diffraction glasses to see diffraction in action and make your own spectrometer with a mini DIY kit!
Curriculum descriptors:
- Recognising colour of objects depends on their properties and the colour of the light source
- Recognising refraction of light at surfaces of transparent materials
- Developing an understanding of the behaviour of light by making observations on its effects
The Outreach program brought a lot of joy to so many children at our school. We were able to take away physical items to show and work with as well link the learning from the workshop to our classroom learning. It was thoroughly enjoyed and we would love the opportunity to work with outreach again soon.
Dion Karagiannis, Year 6 teacher, Rose Park School