Art and Design
➔ Explore and use mechanisms, devices and materials for imaginative activity that leads to original and creative outcomes.
English Language Arts
➔ Use information gained from illustrations and the words in a text to demonstrate understanding of the text.
➔ Determine the meaning domain-specific words and phrases in a text relevant to a grade 2-3 topic or subject area
Required Project Materials
➜ SAM Labs Kit ➜ Student Workbook ➜ Large flashlight ➜ Pencils
➔ Ping pong balls or equivalent Spherical globe (which can be rotated)
➔ Time zone chart ➔ Plain white paper
Warm Up – ‘Scientific Investigation’ (5 mins)
What is the time of day in different cities of the world?
Objective: Recognize how light and shadow relate to the time of day or night in different cities of the world
Procedures: “Today, we are going to learn about light and shadow and the role they play in our everyday life. Did you know that light and shadow help us to know what time of day it is?”
● Adjust the light in the classroom such that subtleties between light and shadow are apparent to students.
● Using a spherical globe and a strong flashlight. Point the flashlight directly on a city/country.
● Students identify the time of day or night in different cities of the world by the amount of light or darkness they perceive in those places.
○ Probe students as to why shadows appear in some areas and not others.
● Teacher leads students through one example in student workbook ‘Observation - Prediction - Result’ chart.
● Options to select one or two additional cities for students to investigate and record their results.
Link forward: The color and brightness of the light affects how we perceive the shadows generated.
The Lesson
Part 1: How does the human eye use light to see? (15 mins)
Objective: Explain how the human eye uses light to see and how perception is affected
Procedures: “We know light and shadow helps us to know what time of day it is. But how do we see? Does anyone know? Do we all see the same thing? We’re going to investigate how the human eye perceives light and color.”
● Teacher uses the circle in the mini-lesson portion of the Student Workbook to draw the iris, lens and retina. Students follow along.
○ The ‘iris’, situated at the front of the eye and it lets the light in.
○ Light travels through the ‘iris’ to the ‘lens’.
○ The ‘lens’ focuses an amount of light onto the ‘retina’ at the back of the eye.
○ The ‘retina’ detects the light and special cells (rods and cones) that react to red, green and blue. This sends signals to the brain allowing us to see.
○ To increase the amount of light our pupils gets bigger. To decrease it, our pupils gets smaller.
■ Option to illustrate this by turning the classroom light off then on and using a mirror to notice the size of the pupil decrease.
○ Color plays a part in the amount of light that is filtered to the retina; yellow is perceived as brighter than red, blue and green.
○ When a yellow (or white) light is used we ‘detect’ the shadow easier than when cast from a red light.
○ The retina can be faulty and not detect red, green and blue accurately. This results in color blindness.
At the end of the mini-lesson, students can match or define keywords in their workbooks. (2 minutes)
Keywords
● Lens
● Retina
● Iris
● Color blindness