Light waves
Light is conceptually difficult for many students and misconceptions can persist unless challenged. The resources in this list not only provide a range of activities and demonstrations, but also background information, practical tips, information on misconceptions and suggested teaching strategies.
This list links to the following topis;
• light waves travelling through a vacuum; speed of light
• the transmission of light through materials: absorption, diffuse scattering and specular reflection at a surface
• use of ray model to explain imaging in mirrors, the pinhole camera, the refraction of light and action of convex lens in focusing (qualitative); the human eye
• colours and the different frequencies of light, white light and prisms (qualitative only); differential colour effects in absorption and diffuse reflection
Visit the secondary science webpage to access all lists: https://www.stem.org.uk/secondary-science
Whilst this list provides a source of information and ideas for experimental work, it is important to note that recommendations can date very quickly. Do NOT follow suggestions which conflict with current advice from CLEAPSS, SSERC or recent safety guides. eLibrary users are responsible for ensuring that any activity, including practical work, which they carry out is consistent with current regulations related to Health and Safety and that they carry an appropriate risk assessment. Further information is provided in our Health and Safety guidance.
Lighting Designer *suitable for home teaching*
This Department for Education clip illustrates the major role that science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects play in the creative industries. The video follows Will a lighting software designer who designs the lighting for concerts, plays, films, pop videos and other entertainment events. Will describes the need for a good grounding in physics and mathematics to do his job.
Light 11-14
Here is a whole set of resources from the Institute of Physics (IOP) on the topic of light specifically designed for key stage three students. You can find the activities in the teaching approaches section. The physics narrative section and the teaching and leaning notes will be particularly appreciated by those teaching outside of their specialism.
Dispensing Optics
Produced for Future Morph, this short video looks at several students following ophthalmic dispensing and contact lens courses. The students describe the work they are doing with lenses and how this relates to the science they learnt at GCSE level. It illustrates some of the career opportunities available in the eye care industry. Also included are some simple student activities, with accompanying teacher guidance, that illustrate how images are formed with lenses.
Light and Optics Teacher Resource and Class Activities
This resource provides a wealth of ideas for investigating light and colour. Ignore the fact that the levels are linked to the American school system (it was produced by NASA) because the activities are equally suited the the Key Stage Three curriculum.
Using lenses, prisms and mirrors students create telescopes, periscopes, microscopes and kaleidoscopes. Other activities include finding focal length and understanding reflection, refraction and diffraction.
The activity on pages 13-16 can be carried out as a demonstration which students will find highly amusing. For a variation of this activity, you can draw a simple maize and ask students to take it in turns to try to draw a line from the start the the finish by only looking in the mirror, but they won't be able to do it! You can use a visualiser to project their efforts onto the board.
Tyndall Effect: Red Sky at Night
This demonstration will captivate students. It helps to answer the simple, yet complex question: Why is the sky blue and the sunset red?
It's all to do with the scattering of the different colours in visible light and can be easily demonstrated using a suspension of milk in water.
The Disappearing Coin Trick
Great for a starter to grab students attention. Take a coin and place it under a clear, empty drinking glass. Students will be able to see the coin clearly through the glass. Then you slowly pour normal water into the glass and as it fills up, the coin vanishes.
Shadow illusion
These Veritasium videos are a good way to capture students' attention at the beginning of a topic and create a sense of curiosity!
Derek Muller asks members of the public to predict the outcome of his simple pinhole experiments.
Holding up pieces of card with a different shaped hole in each, the image that appears on a wall is always a circle!
You could stop the film two minutes in and challenge students to explain why this happens, leading into an experiment with pinhole cameras so that students can work out the answer using ray diagrams
The Vanishing Head aka Ghost Drink Trick
In this magic trick, based on Pepper's ghost, any object placed in a box becomes transparent or sometimes even vanishes. By controlling the relative amounts of light transmitted and reflected through a piece of Perspex at a 45 degree angle, objects seem to appear or vanish.
Colour mixing
Such a great way to demonstrate colour light mixing. You could do the demo yourself, or show the students the film.
Do Try This at Home: the Light Collection *suitable for home teaching*
Here's a selection of ideas that students can try out for themselves at home. You could ask them to choose three to show someone in their family and then explain how it works to them.
Sound and Light
After you've demonstrated how a sound wave travels by using a slinky, here's a very visual and captivating demonstration.
Martin Archer, from Imperial College, explores how to increase a child’s understanding of sound through a visual demonstration of a sound wave. He explains how a Rubens Tube can be used to show a sound wave by passing sound through a metal tube full of gas. The top of the tube has tiny holes along it, through which the gas escapes. When lit the flame length varies showing the compressions and rarefactions of the sound wave.
Seeing Pink Elephants
This is a great activity to show how the eye sees colour and how the eye can be tricked into seeing the wrong colour, in this case, pink elephants.
When the human eye is exposed to one colour for a relatively long period of time, the cone cells will become saturated with that colour. Once the eye is exposed to a broad range of colours again, the brain will pick up weaker signals from that colour and an image with that colour missing will be formed.