How Lighting And Ambience At Home Can Enhance Stem Learning For kids

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How Lighting and Ambience at home can enhance STEM Learning for Kids
As parents, you may be doing all the right things to encourage your child to move forward on the STEM education path and learn robotics for kids and coding for kids. You bought a suitable play kit and the necessary equipment so your child can experiment and learn.
Your home lighting is an essential determinant of the effectiveness of learning. However, there's still something important that you should take care of - it is the ambaience or the environment in which the child will learn. It also includes what type of colour has been built into the space.
Light is essential for the human body's functioning. As humans have evolved, our bodies have adjusted to build an internal clock that syncs with nature's day-night cycle. Light regulates our sleep and wake patterns, level of alertness, breathing and blood pressure. However, with the arrival of artificial lighting, our natural bodily processes have had to be readjusted. Work can happen even at night. We can work in the dark indoors, lit up by artificial lighting, instead of going out.
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... Thus, artificial lighting has impacted human functioning and has been the subject of many studies. The impact of the physical environment on kids' learning is also widely studied.
So, let's look at how lighting affects the kids' learning:
Boost Learning with More Daytime light
The light entering the eyes impacts the secretion of cortisol and melatonin, hormones responsible for alertness and sleepiness.
A study on American elementary school students in three states of Washington, California, and Colorado, found that students who studied in the sunniest of the classroom, i.e. rooms exposed to natural sunlight the most reported better learning outcomes in reading and math.
Bluelight, commonly emitted by electronic gadgets such as smartphones, was reported to be the most effective in promoting alertness and reducing sleepiness in students.
However, exposure to blue light before bedtime can have the opposite effect. It will delay the release of sleep-inducing melatonin, leading to poor quality sleep and increased drowsiness during the day, which will take a toll on the kid's learning. So make sure your kid puts away the smartphone at least one hour before sleep time.
Like sunlight, any view of nature is also found to help enhance the focus and attention among kids. It can also be a simulated nature-like environment that kids could gaze at. Both will have the same effect.
Colours, Lights & Their Implications
The human mind can distinguish around one million shades of colours. The primary colours include red, yellow and blue, while secondary colours include green, purple and orange. Colour and light have been known to improve our health and are increasingly used in therapy to cure physical and mental ailments.
While creating spaces at home for STEM learning, coding for kids, and robotics for kids, be aware of what these colours stand for. Let's have a look.
1.Red: Red colour stands for health, vigour and love. Red will energize and power the kids up. It is suitable to relax and refresh a tired mind.
2.Yellow: Yellow symbolizes cheerfulness and happiness. It is the precursor of good times and is associated with positivity and enthusiasm. It stimulates our brain and motivates us to interact and get active.
3.Blue: Blue is the colour of water and sky. It symbolizes freedom, imagination and inspiration. Different shades of blue can have different meanings. The light blue shade fosters calmness and tranquillity, while dark blue is associated with knowledge and power.
4.Green: Green is the colour of nature. It symbolizes life, growth, and renewal. It is considered the most relaxing for the human eye and mind. It stands for lack of experience and is ideal for kids' STEM spaces to encourage them to start growing. It also eases nervousness and anxiety.
5.Purple: Purple, like blue, can have a calming effect on the mind and relieve emotional stress. However, it also combines red's energy; therefore, purple is associated with qualities such as ambition, power, wealth, wisdom and dignity.
6.Orange: Orange, a mixture of yellow and red, promotes warmth and compassion. It is associated with feelings of joy, happiness and creativity. Just like yellow, orange stimulates the mind and will help kids come up with creative thoughts.
Smart LED Lights
Now that you know the importance of colours in therapy, try decorating your STEM spaces with the lighting of the appropriate colour. While you can paint the walls in the desired colour, using lights would be more convenient. The colour of the lighting will impact the moods and determine how kids feel when they start STEM learning.
You can lay your hands on intelligent colour-changing and intensity-changing light bulbs. Many establishments, such as restaurants and shopping malls, are putting unique lighting in place to give their customers a distinctive feel.
Light Up the Creativity
Any worthy STEM lab is designed by considering the principles of good lighting and optimal ambience and physical environment. Assess your child's needs and predispositions before creating a STEM space at home, and zero in on the colour combinations.
This article was first published here: https://playcomputer.org/how-lighting-and-ambience-at-home-can-enhance-stem-learning-for-kids/
Play Computer (Pee Cee) is India's First Open Source Programmable Electronic Platform specially designed for kids. It is designed to promote STEM Education & Learning for Kids in a fun way.
With this pocket ninja, kids learn about Robotics, Coding, AI, and IoT through practical projects. Kids are not only learners but also become creators and problem solvers who are not afraid to test their creativity and try something new.