Focus: In this unit, students investigate the phenomena of light and its interaction with matter. The subtitle of the unit is Why do we sometimes see different things with looking at the same object? This is a phenomenon that students experience when they look at a window and see not only what is behind the window but what is reflected off the window glass. The unit allows student to explore this experience by asking questions, formulating explanations, revising questions, setting up and conducting activities and research and working with classmates to analyze the phenomena they experience. Students explore concepts that include the following:
- How can something act like a mirror and a window at the same time?
- How do similar amounts of light transmit through and reflect off a one-way mirror?
- How do light and the one-way mirror interact to cause the one-way mirror phenomenon?
As your students move through their day-to-day activities they will also read Core Knowledge literacy selections. These include factual articles, history of the sciences, art and literature, spotting bad science in media and advertisements, graphics comprehension, research-type articles, reliability of sources, and other areas of science literacy.
Lesson Numbers:
- Teacher Guide: 8 Lessons
- Student Reader: 5 Collections
Lesson time:
- Lesson can be competed in one or more class periods.
- A Pacing Guide, found in Online Resources, offers the suggestion that the entire unit should take about 18 days to complete if class is held each day.
- A complete list of materials needed to complete the unit is also provided in the Online Resources.
- The Core Knowledge Student Reader includes one reading collection per week for every week of the unit. A week’s reading collection relates to the lessons completed in the previous week.
- The reading is assigned at the beginning of the week with the accompanying writing exercise due at the end of the week.
- The reading and writing exercises are designed to be completed by students independently, with brief, supporting, teacher-facilitated discussions at the beginning, midpoint, and end of the week.
Additional Search Terms for the Student Reader:
• LED light • wavelength • electromagnetic radiation • light • light source • visible light • one-way mirror • wave • absorb • reflection • transmit • mirage • refraction • transparent • translucent • opaque • nonfiction • informational text
