The best thing I did during my time at Farringtons was turning the entire classroom into a camera – Yr13 Student
The Camera Obscura is fun to make, interactive and is always a hit with students and staff alike.
What also makes this activity fantastic for schools is that it employs Physics in order to work which opens the door for cross-curricular activities. Physics students can learn how light moves, Art students can learn how master painters understood scale – Rembrandt, Caravaggio and Vermeer have been 'accused' of using a Camera Obscura to 'trace' their paintings. Members of staff and other students often come to experience it purely out of curiosity, it's a fantastic talking point across the school.
At the end of my first year at Farringtons a student wrote in the yearbook that the classroom Camera Obscura was the most fun activity she had undertaken during her time at the school. I've repeated it every year since.
Thank you to Liam Smith at Farringtons School for this resource - please download the resource and let us know what you think.