St. Michael’s School celebrated light with its tenth annual Science Challenge, Focus on Optics, on February 19, 2015.
The United Nations had proclaimed 2015 the International Year of Light, and the celebration of light based technology and art aimed for a global impact at all levels of society. By chance, this coincided with St. Michael’s School’s ten year anniversary of its Science Challenge, Focus on Optics.
The Science Challenge is designed specifically for fourth and fifth graders. Children in these grades had the opportunity to learn about and play with light. During the event, students were challenged to create a circuit that would uniformly light three bulbs, to build a light house that would have an LED bulb at the apex, and to hit a target with a laser gun via a mirror. All this was aimed at making science, especially optical science so important in our Tucson community, real for these children.
The event was put on each year at St. Michael’s School in conjunction with the National Optical Astronomy Observatory at the University of Arizona, which supplies the targets, laser guns and adult supervision. Today the observatory’s mission continues through NOIRLab.
Participation was free and open to teams of two, both of whom had to be current fourth or fifth graders. The Science Challenge took place at St. Michael’s School, 602 N. Wilmot Rd.