4-PS-2.2: Develop a model to describe that light reflecting from objects and…

Bouncing Light: Mirrors, Water and Colour Grades 3–5

Steer a beam around a wall with mirrors, find out why a pencil looks broken in water, and split white light into the colours hiding inside it. Three hands-on lessons on reflection, refraction and colour that build on shadows and work in any climate.

• How can a mirror steer a beam of light? 55–65 min

  Teams shine a slit beam at a mirror, measure the angle it arrives and the angle it leaves, and find the rule for bouncing light. Then they use the rule to steer a beam round a cardboard wall, and test with a dark box how we really see things.

Your Senses: How Does Your Body Know? Grade 4 · partly supports this outcome

Map the most sensitive spots on your skin, find the blind spot in each eye, lose the flavour of a jelly bean by pinching your nose, and build an owl ear. Four lessons on how senses gather information and the brain makes sense of it.

• Why do you have two eyes? 45–60 min

  Students try to touch a pen cap to a pen tip ten times with one eye covered and ten times with both eyes open, then make a dot vanish into their own blind spot. They explain what two eyes give the brain that one eye can't.

Printable practice for 4-PS-2.2

• Bouncing Light: Mirrors, Water and Colour workbook included with the unit

  1 word wall, 1 English-support page, 1 practice page, 1 reading, 1 unit review, 1 unit test, with answer keys.

• Your Senses: How Does Your Body Know? workbook included with the unit

  1 English-support page, 1 practice page, 1 reading, 1 unit review, 1 unit test, with answer keys.

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