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"Light is a fascinating and familiar topic for children and adults. It's also rich and complex, which is great if you are teaching a graduate level course in Quantum Mechanics. But how do you lay the foundation for this exciting topic? What do you teach to the youngest would-be scientists? This self-paced, 5 week course is designed for both formal and informal educators who want to teach children ages 6-14 about the science of light and optics. Starting with a simple kit and some basic activities, we'll work through understanding the basics of light, color, shadows, reflection and refraction. Each module offers easy to digest science content, application of science process skills, connections to real world technologies and engaging activities designed to build your comfort and confidence with light and optics. Throughout each module, guidance (suggestions) on how to use and create learning experiences for children will be provided through online discussions and other opportunities for self-reflection and sharing. This process will support the completion of a final project."

"Create your own DIY lighting around a LED light bulb hanging on a wire. This resourceful video from The Lighting Channel shares 10 ways to change a lightbulb: with paper, crochet, a bottle, a bowl, paper mâché, ducting tube, stencils, a metal utensil can, a pentagon tower made with construction paper, and a soft box. Remember to use LED lights for safety-they don't burn as hot as other kinds of light bulbs-and give them lots of room to breathe. As always, be safe, be smart, be sure to test your creations, and don't leave them unattended. And for an up close look at these ideas, check out this playlist. Here are two we want to try:"

" This week I've been collaborating with Year 4 students, and their inspiring classroom teacher and fellow ADE Dan Aivaliotis-Martinez (@martinezgeek). We developed some ideas for teaching and learning that connected Sphero devices with art-making practices - in a nutshell, programming a Sphero ball to move with the coloured light turned on, recording the trail, or 'light painting', photographically. These cross-curricular lessons drew upon elements of the curriculum in science, maths, technology and the arts, as students created 'light paintings'."

"Our recent activity development around Light Play led to a synergistic moment as I began to wonder whether cut paper installations I've created might allow for some interesting explorations, especially around creating collaborative light environments. So for two days this week, we filled the Tinkering Studio's workshop space with cut paper crowds and invited people to collaborate in activating the installation using Light Play."

"Get into the holiday season by making these Christmas light-up cards using paper circuits. Learn how to create a simple circuit using copper tape, a coin cell battery and an LED light."

"Not sleeping? You might need to turn off blue light on your phone. This week, I was interviewing John Medina, author of Brain Rules, for a future episode of Every Classroom Matters. He made the offhand comment, "blue light wreaks havoc with your brain." We've known this since 2006, This Psychology Today article can help explain why your teenager may be awake ALL NIGHT."

"This companion app for the popular new exhibition Creatures of Light: Nature's Bioluminescence offers a close look at some of the extraordinary organisms that produce light."

"Creatures of Light is a beautiful free iPad app from the American Museum of Natural History. The app contains five chapter about bioluminescent animals like jellyfish, fireflies, and glow worms. In each chapter students learn about what causes bioluminescence and how it helps animals survive in their environments. Each chapter includes an interactive map of the world that students on which students can tap to learn about the bioluminescent animals of a particular region."

"Use the e-Textiles-in-a-Box tutorial and get ready to teach young people about electronics and computing. Based on the Computational Textiles Curriculum and Sew Electric from MIT, e-Textiles-in-a-Box provides instructions for sewing soft circuits and programming an Arduino microprocessor on the way to creating a bookmark book light and an interactive felt monster that lights up and sings. NCWIT is pleased to offer e-Textiles-in-a-Box in cooperation with the MIT High-Low Tech Group, and with funding from the National Science Foundation."

"Exploratorium's Color Uncovered iPad app is essentially a seventeen part ebook with some nice interactive activities and videos built into it to support the articles. In Color Uncovered students will why we sometimes see colors that aren't really there, how light influences the colors we see, and why dogs would have trouble with traffic lights if they drove. One of the interactive features on Color Uncovered that I particularly like is the "Colors Add Up" activity. In "Colors Add Up" students use a clear CD case (I'm sure any other clear piece of plastic will work too) to mix colors projected from their iPads. The app also gives students a couple of short lessons on how and why artificial colors are added to foods like salmon, candy, cheese, and fruit. "

"I've been wanting to build my daughter an engineering wall for a long time.  A place for her to learn and play about some of the basics of engineering like pulleys and lights and pumps.  She loves designing and building, but all of the walls I had seen seemed either too complicated to build or not sturdy enough to be worth the time.  Then we went swimming and I had a burst of inspiration.  Pool noodles!  Light enough to hang on a wall, and sturdy enough to last a while.  And enter in my favorite wall hanging supply, Command™ products to get the job done.  Here's how we made an Awesome Pool Noodle Engineering Wall for Kids."

"You can't watch a video like you read a book; the modalities couldn't be much different. On the surface level a video uses light, color, sound, and moving images, with the potential for adding text and shape and color and light filters as overlays to communicate ideas, while the most basic text structures use alphanumeric symbols, paragraph and sentence structure, and an assortment of text features (e.g., white space, headings and subheadings, fonts, etc.) to convey their message. There is much, much more to it than this. Videos are meant to be consumed in short bursts, while literature, for example, is meant to be "sat with." Videos are (often manic) sprints, while texts are (often meandering) walks. Because of this very different tone and purpose as a matter of design, it's unfair to criticize videos as "less rigorous" than texts, just as it would be misleading to say that video is universally "more engaging" than text (something I may or may not have said in the past). It's more complex than that."

"I've been wanting to build my daughter an engineering wall for a long time.  A place for her to learn and play about some of the basics of engineering like pulleys and lights and pumps.  She loves designing and building, but all of the walls I had seen seemed either too complicated to build or not sturdy enough to be worth the time.  Then we went swimming and I had a burst of inspiration.  Pool noodles!  Light enough to hang on a wall, and sturdy enough to last a while.  And enter in my favorite wall hanging supply, Command™ products to get the job done.  Here's how we made an Awesome Pool Noodle Engineering Wall for Kids."

A PicoCricket is a tiny computer that can make things spin, light up, and play music. You can plug lights, motors, sensors, and other devices into a PicoCricket, then program them to react, interact, and communicate

"Here's an interesting concept for a case meant to make the iPad usable for blind and visually impaired customers. The Omnifer almost covers the iPad completely, save for a small portion of the screen, and adds raised Braille buttons. What's really cool is that the Omnifer is more than Braille buttons slapped onto a case. Instead, gas stored inside the case raises and lowers the Braille characters, making different ones available, depending on what's on the iPad's screen. The gas pockets are filled with a chemical that expands when exposed to light. The portion of the screen beneath the buttons will light up as needed to raise the proper characters. In this way, a user could "stream" text for reading via Braille."

"Don't bring your iPad to bed with you if you value your sleep. Researchers at the National Academy of Science published a study on Monday that concludes the "short-wavelength light" (light that's closer to the blue end of the spectrum) messes up the circadian rhythms that govern sleep and suppresses the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin. The result? People reported feeling less tired, and took longer to fall asleep. They were also more tired the next day."

Introduction to Physical Computing Tinkering with Light, Sound, and Motion A guide for explorations and sharing possibilities for Young Makers mentors

"In December our hackerspace, Crash Space in Culver City, hosted an Instructables Build Night featuring Chibitronics Circuit Stickers. With Channukah around the corner, I thought an LED menorah would be a perfect project to see what I could make with the stick-on circuits. When celebrating Channukah, the candles of the menorah are lit each night, one for the first night, two for the second, and so on until the eighth night, when they are all lit. The middle candle is lit first each night, and is used to light the other eight candles. My goal for the LED menorah was for it function like the candles, with the center always lit, and an additional LED "candle" lit each night. I also wanted to set it up so that lighting the LED's each night didn't require additional construction. As you will see, the goals were met and turning on each additional LED was done using a pull tab, which allowed all the taping and construction to be done ahead of time."

"Learn how to use long exposure photography to take pictures that capture an image over time. Then use Sphero to draw with light."