Abstract—Light Polarization has many technological applications, and its discovery was crucial to reveal the transverse nature of the electromagnetic waves. However, despite its fundamental and practical importance, in high school, this property of light is often neglected. This is a pity not only for its conceptual relevance, but also because polarization gives the possibility to perform many brilliant experiments with low cost materials. Moreover, the treatment of this matter lends very well to an interdisciplinary approach between art, biology and technology, which usually makes things more interesting to students. For these reasons, we have developed, and in this work, we introduce a laboratory on light polarization for high school and undergraduate students. They can see beautiful pictures when birefringent materials are set between two crossed polarizing filters. Pupils are very fascinated and drawn into by what they observe. The colourful images remind them of those ones of abstract painting or alien landscapes. With this multidisciplinary teaching method, students are more engaged and participative, and also, the learning process of the respective physics concepts is more effective. Keywords—Light polarization, optical activity, multidisciplinary education, science and art. I. INTRODUCTION E have generally found that many students do not like science because, according to them, this does not generate a particular emotional feeling as art or literature. However, according to the philosopher Karl Popper, science is not only like art but it is the most human of all the arts. Keeping in mind Popper’s phrase, we have developed a multidisciplinary and artistic approach to the study of light polarization. Light polarization has many important utilizations [1]. It is used in technological devices from chemistry to medicine, from optics to engineering, and also in the natural world, we can find a lot of its applications. In optical systems, wave plates are made by birefringent materials, liquid crystal displays utilize birefringence and light modulators use electrically induced birefringence. Birefringence is present in many medical devices, for example, it is used to measure the thickness of the optical nerve and the diagnosis of glaucoma. In general, many biological materials are birefringent and microscopy makes use of polarized light in the analysis of tissues. Polarization is also commonly used to study the structure of crystals and molecules. In mechanical engineering, birefringence is exploited to detect stress in structures. F. Logiurato, was with Trento University, Department of Physics, Italy. He is now with Amazon Regional University IKIAM, Department of Physics and Mathematics, Ecuador (e-mail: fabrizio.logiurato@ikiam.edu.ec). Unfortunately, light polarization is usually considered a marginal concept in school programs. In order to fill this gap, we have developed an interdisciplinary laboratory on this subject for high school and undergraduate students. In this one, pupils have the possibility to understand the physics of light polarization, its connections with the chemistry and the basics of its applications. Fascinating images appear when we set between two crossed polarizing filters some materials. The pictures that we can see are similar to those of the abstract art. Students can create their own artistic compositions, take photos of them and make their experiments with the guide of the teacher. The experimental apparatus is very cheap: they use laptop computer screens as source of polarized light, polarizing filters, water with cane sugar, fructose and other sugars and combinations of glasses with several shapes, many simple objects recycled from the trash, such as plastic boxes or packaging, which are usually birefringent. Indeed, they can create art with garbage. During their activity, teachers can discuss with pupils the relation between art and science, for instance, how artistic trends in the course of art history were very depending on science and technology. To make just an example, photography or cinema did not kill painting, but they have given new means to communication and expression to human feelings, maybe more hard-hitting than traditional painting. II. PLAYING WITH DIRAC For our experiments, we use polarizing filters of the kind invented by Edwin Herbert Land in 1938. Land was an American scientist, founder of the Polaroid and also inventor of the camera instant photography. Usually modern polarizing filters are made from a sheet of layers with aligned chains of polyvinyl alcohol polymers. The chains are covered with iodine in order to make them conductive. In this way, an electromagnetic wave can induce electrical currents along the polymers, and these molecules absorb the energy of the wave with polarization along their direction. So, the transmitted light is mainly polarized in the direction perpendicular to the polymers (Fig. 1 (a)). In order to illustrate the behavior of polarizing filters, students can perform the experiment that Paul A.M. Dirac describes in the introduction of his famous book of quantum mechanics [2]. In Fig. 1 (b), a white screen is illuminated from behind by a lamp that emits unpolarized light. A polarizing filter polarizes the light along a certain direction, as we can note by observing the light through a second filter. If the two filters are perpendicular, the light is almost completely blocked (Fig. 1 Teaching Light Polarization by Putting Art and Physics Together Fabrizio Logiurato W World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology International Journal of Educational and Pedagogical Sciences Vol:11, No:4, 2017 746 International Scholarly and Scientific Research & Innovation 11(4) 2017 scholar.waset.org/1307-6892/10006620 International Science Index, Educational and Pedagogical Sciences Vol:11, No:4, 2017 waset.org/Publication/10006620