Exploring the wonders of light

Southampton schoolchildren will get an insight into the world of optics and photonics next week thanks to the enthusiasm of one of their classmates.

Zofia Wrobel, eight, produced a poster exploring the concept of light for her recent Year 4 project.

The youngster from Freemantle Church of England Community Academy, in Southampton, was so inspired by her investigations into sources of light and how light relates to shadow, that her mum Magda, who works at the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) at the University of Southampton, arranged for her colleagues to visit the school to demonstrate the power of light.

The Lightwave Outreach team, run by PhD student volunteers from the University of Southampton’s Optical Society, will be visiting the school on 24 June to show the children hands-on demonstrations giving them a basic understanding of the power of light in everything from mirrors and lenses, to optical fibres and telecommunications.

Zofia said: “I am really excited about the Lightwave visit and meeting the people my mum works with. I am looking forward to seeing some interesting experiments about light and I hope I will learn something new from it.”

Find out more about Lightwave.