SC.7.P.10.2

Students will be working through a lesson pertaining to a 7th grade standard that allows for students to observe that light is reflected, refracted, and or absorbed.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will be able to observe, explain, and model reflection and refraction through a series of inquiry light stations. Students will engage and perform different challenges to obtain knowledge about how light reflects off of surfaces and how light is refracted when changing mediums.

Type: Lesson Plan

While working in groups, students will be provided various materials to design models that illustrate the refraction, reflection, and absorption of light.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson plan students learn about the property of light: refraction. The lesson begins with an engage demo placing a pencil in a glass of water. The students will be able to witness the effects of refraction. After answering a few questions the students are split into partners for the explore portion of the lesson. The students place a penny on the bottom of an opaque cup then step back until they cannot see the penny. The partner then slowly pours water into the cup until the penny comes into site (record data). The teacher leads the class in a classroom discussion about their findings. The teacher then explains what refraction is and why it happens. For the elaborate portion of the lesson students are asked to explain how to spearfish from a riverbank. There is a short quiz for the summative assessment.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will review the main interactions of light followed by a short investigation to understand how matter gets its color.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson focuses on the standards that require students to understand:

• What is light and how does it travel?
• What is color and how do we see specific colors?

In this lesson students will participate in an observation activity that involves the teacher becoming the boogie man and wearing a specific colored cape. The students will observe the boogie man ( the teacher ) in the room without any sunlight or light from other sources on. Then class will complete a formative assessment using four corners and end the class with a exit slip as a summative.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson students will investigate how the various surfaces have different albedo values. Students will analyze the difference between radiation, conduction, and convection, the three mechanisms by which heat is transferred through Earth's system. Students will engage in collecting data, graphing their measurements, and presenting their findings to the class.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students exploring how light travels, how heat moves and how it all affects temperature will find this activity fun and exciting. They will have to determine which type of panel to choose for a fictitious greenhouse - glass or plastic and how much light, heat and moisture is best to let in - determined by whether the material is opaque, translucent or transparent. This is a fun challenge but applicable also to the environmental demands we are currently facing.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Type: Lesson Plan

Student groups rotate through four stations to examine light energy behavior: refraction, magnification, prisms and polarization.

Type: Lesson Plan

This investigation explores the effect of distance and albedo on energy absorption.

Type: Lesson Plan

Using UV beads, students will observe and draw energy.

Type: Lesson Plan

The purpose of the experiment is to predict and observe how light reacts to different objects using three different light sources. Predictions will be recorded and then each item will be tested with each light source to determine if the prediction is correct. Discussion will follow why or why not a certain reaction occurred and if it can be seen in other circumstances.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will be able to describe the refraction of light.

Content statement
Refraction is the bending of a light's path as it moves through one medium to another.

Type: Lesson Plan

Light can be reflected, refracted or absorbed. Learn how light interacts as it strikes various objects in this interactive tutorial.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Dr. George Cohen discusses a variety of skin treatments that utilize electromagnetic radiation, including lasers, UV light, and x-rays.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Professional/Enthusiast

A sculptor explains how he creates illusions using light, mirrors, and other tools.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Professional/Enthusiast

Get focused and learn a little about bird photography and the lenses used to create beautiful images! Produced with funding from the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Professional/Enthusiast

No need to sugar coat it: making candy involves math and muscles. Learn how light refraction and exponential growth help make candy colors just right!

Type: Perspectives Video: Professional/Enthusiast

This resource lets students look at double refraction, also known as birefringence. Birefringence is a process in which light moving in different directions, or polarizations, travels at different speeds within a material. Students will build a "sculpture" of wire and cellophane tape placed in different directions and will observe the effects of light and refraction.

Type: Teaching Idea

In this hands on activity, students can use cooking oil and glass rods (and other rods) to demonstrate the refraction of light.

Type: Teaching Idea

This is a very interesting web site about the electromagnetic spectrum. It gives great background information and examples on the different types of waves.

Type: Text Resource

• Study the relation between the speed of light and the refractive index of the medium it passes through.
• Choose from a collection of materials with known refractive indices and obtain the speed of light as it passes through.
• Learn why light-years are used as an astronomical measurement of distance.

Type: Tutorial

This is an interactive graphic that visually represents the law of angle of reflection. Users may select a wavelength to change the color of the light and can also set the angle of reflection.

Type: Virtual Manipulative

This resource is a virtual manipulative that allows the user to change the angle of incidence of light and select from a variety of materials, each of which has a different index of refraction, to demonstrate how light may be refracted.

Type: Virtual Manipulative