Lesson Plan: A New Way of Looking
Lesson 1 of 3 (Unit consists of 3 lessons)
5th-8th Grade
Truths:
Lenses are pieces of glass that bend light. People who have poor vision see items out of focus. They wear glasses or contacts lenses to make their sight clearer. Those glasses bend the rays of light to focus the image for the person’s eye. The bending of light is called refraction. (http://www.physics4kids.com/files/light_lens.html)
Books needed:
• Along Came Galileo by Jeanne Bendick
• The Usborne Science Encyclopedia Teacher reference page 218 Refraction of Light and page 220 Lenses
Materials for each group of 4:
• Different types of Reading Glasses x4 per group
• A piece of newspaper or magazine
Safety:
Students should not place glasses on their face. These glasses are for experimentation away from the face.
Question and Answer (to be memorized):
What happens to light when it passes through a convex lens?
The light bends or refracts that results in magnification.
Prepare:
Ask the students the following question. Why do some people need glasses? What do you think people did before the invention of glasses?
Present:
Along Came Galileo by Jeanne Bendick Read pages 44-59
Compare Types:
1. You will need to hand out materials to each group.
2. Let student experiment with the lenses to try and create a telescope like Galileo.
3. Remind students they are trying to use the lenses to make a telescope so they need to magnify the newspaper. NOTE: One pair of glasses will magnify the paper but they need to make a telescope with two lenses working together.
4. The teacher should go and check the student’s work. Ask the students what happens when they change the focal length (This is the distance between the glasses). Students should be using two pairs of glasses one in front of the other and this should magnify the paper given.
5. Students should write out what they did and draw what they saw on a separate sheet of paper to be turned in to the teacher. The teacher should check these papers closely to ensure students understand the concepts and did not develop any misconceptions.
Express:
Then students should write out what they think happened on another sheet of paper. As a class discuss what the students saw and then explain what really happened.
Teacher Notes:
Assess:
What happens to light when it passes through a convex lens?
The lens bends or refracts light that results in magnification.
Extension:
At home students can check out the NASA website with the Hubble Telescope Mission.
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/main/index.html>
Thisextension could be done as a class with a Roku Television or class set of tablets. This would enrich the lesson by exposing students to engineering and technology real world application of lens and include discussions about different career fields that utilize this technology.
ISTE Standards Students:
1a Students articulate and set personal learning goals, develop strategies leveraging technology to achieve them and reflect on the learning process itself to improve learning outcomes.
1c Students use technology to seek feedback that informs and improves their practice and to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways.
3d Students build knowledge by actively exploring real-world issues and problems, developing ideas and theories and pursuing answers and solutions.
5b Students collect data or identify relevant data sets, use digital tools to analyze them, and represent data in various ways to facilitate problem-solving and decision making.
6b Students create original works or responsibly repurpose or remix digital resources into new creations.
ISTE Standards Educators:
1c Stay current with research that supports improved student learning outcomes, including findings from the learning sciences.
3b Establish a learning culture that promotes curiosity and critical examination of online resources and fosters digital literacy and media fluency.
4a Dedicate planning tine to collaborate with colleagues to create authentic learning experiences that leverage technology.
5a Use technology to create, adapt and personalize learning experiences that foster independent learning and accommodate learner differences and needs.
5c Explore and apply instructional design principles to create innovative digital learning environments that engage and support learning.
6c Create learning opportunities that challenge students to use a design process and computational thinking to innovate and solve problems.
6d Model and nurture creativity and creative expression to communicate ideas, knowledge or connections.
