Year 6 Open Their Eyes to the Wonders of Light
Year 6 are studying all aspects of light. It is a fascinating topic which has taken us from learning the fundamentals of travelling in straight lines and through vacuums to how we actually see – with images arriving on our retinas upside down and that our brain knows this and turns everything the right way up!
Last week we took close up photos of our own eyes to see our irises and pupils and how they react to light as we studied the structure and function of the human eye. We researched the use of eyelashes and eyebrows and tear ducts and how our lenses change shape, or accommodate, so we can see near and far.
This week saw us look at a different practical side in light – the study of reflections – in particular the incident and reflection rays and how to measure the angle of incidence and angle of reflection. The practical tasks took us through a journey of increasing complexity starting with identifying the normal ray, following light mazes, practice with a protractor and finally lining up incident rays and trying to accurately plot the reflected rays – we had some children manage to get this within 0 degrees of tolerance, which is absolutely incredible – this is the sort of accuracy required at GCSE level!
Next week we are looking at refraction by transparent mediums such as water and glass and how light is bent as it goes through a glass block and split into the colours of the rainbow as it passes through a prism.
Outstanding effort Year 6!
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