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Lesson Plan
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: What Does Light See?

For Teachers 10th - 12th
Students are introduced to the concept of refraction. After making sure they understand the concepts of diffraction and interference, students work collaboratively to explain optical phenomena that cannot be accounted for via these two...
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Lesson Plan
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: See the Genes

For Teachers 10th - 12th
Through this concluding instructional activity and its associated activity, students experience one valuable and often overlooked skill of successful scientists and engineers- communicating work and ideas. Students create posters...
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Lesson Plan
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Learning Light's Properties

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Students learn the basic properties of light--the concepts of light absorption, transmission, reflection and refraction, as well as the behavior of light during interference. Lecture information briefly addresses the electromagnetic...
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Unit Plan
Physics Classroom

The Physics Classroom: Wavelike Behaviors of Light

For Students 9th - 10th
How light waves demonstrate their wave nature by reflection, refraction, and diffraction.
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Whiteboard
ClassFlow

Class Flow: What Is Light?

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
[Free Registration/Login Required] This flipchart reviews the characteristics of light and its properties. Students are given examples of reflection, refraction, and lens types. An assessment component is included.
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Lesson Plan
Utah Education Network

Uen: I'm So Bright! I Wear My Shades Indoors!

For Teachers 6th
This lesson engages students in learning about light through multiple sources. Students will learn how light is produced, reflected, refracted, and separated. Students will communicate their findings through an independent project that...
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Lesson Plan
Utah Education Network

Uen: Enlightening Explorations, Part Iii

For Teachers 6th
This lesson contains the following labs: Rainbows, Refraction with Prisms, and What Color Is It? Students will study light by reading various nonfiction texts and viewing a video lesson. Then students will engage in the following labs:...
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Lesson Plan
Utah Education Network

Uen: Enlightening Explorations, Part Ii

For Teachers 6th
This lesson engages students in learning about light. Studets will describe how light is produced, reflected, refracted, and separated.
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Handout
Physics Classroom

The Physics Classroom: Light Waves and Color

For Students 9th - 10th
The behavior of light waves is introduced and discussed. Also, polarization, color, diffraction, and interference are introduced and discussed thoroughly as supporting evidence of the wave nature of light.
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Unit Plan
Vision Learning

Visionlearning: Physics: Light I: Particle or Wave

For Students 9th - 10th
Instructional module focusing on light. Discussion includes historical development of particle versus wave theories and the scientific studies leading to the understanding of light waves today. Site also includes an interactive practice...
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Unit Plan
Physics Classroom

The Physics Classroom: The Nature of a Wave

For Students 9th - 10th
A very good introduction to the world of waves. Waves and wavelike motion, what is a wave, and categories of waves are the topics examined in this site. Many links to other wave sites.
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Online Course
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Mit: Open Course Ware: Courses: Physics: Electricity and Magnetism

For Students 9th - 10th
College-level physics course highlighting electromagnetism. This course also includes a wide variety of other physics topics including lightning, electrocardiograms, metal detectors, and atom smashers, to name a few. Course includes a...
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Handout
Optical Society

Optical Society of America: Optics for Kids: Lenses and Geometrical Optics

For Students 3rd - 8th
Article explaining what lenses are and how they work. At the end of the article, there are links to several hands-on activities for investigating lenses.
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Activity
Optical Society

Optical Society of America: Exploring Science of Light: Intermediate Activities

For Students 9th - 10th
A collection of intermediate experiments, for students aged ten and up, for exploring the magnification, reflection, and refraction of light.
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Handout
University of St. Andrews (UK)

University of St. Andrews: Christiaan Huygens

For Students 9th - 10th
This University of St. Andrews site contains biographical information and findings of Christiaan Huygens.
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Unit Plan
PBS

Pbs Learning Media: Observing Refraction of Light

For Students 9th - 10th
This video segment adapted from Shedding Light on Science illustrates how light changes speed, and thus direction, in a process known as refraction. Includes background reading and discussion questions. [2:05]
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Unit Plan
CK-12 Foundation

Ck 12: Wave Properties

For Students 9th - 10th
[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] Students investigate behaviors of waves, including interference, reflection, refraction, and diffraction.
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Unit Plan
BBC

Bbc: Gcse Bitesize: General Properties of Waves

For Students 9th - 10th
Light travels as waves. Waves can be described by their amplitude, wavelength and frequency. The speed of a wave can be calculated from its frequency and wavelength.
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Activity
American Museum of Natural History

American Museum of Natural History: See the Light

For Students 3rd - 8th
Take a look at light with these three easy experiments
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Activity
Discovery Education

Discovery Education: 3 M Young Scientist Lab: Disappearing Glass

For Students 9th - 10th
Glass objects seem to disappear when placed in cooking oil.
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Activity
Discovery Education

Discovery Education: 3 M Young Scientist Lab: Gelatin Optic Fibers

For Students 3rd - 8th
Strips of gelatin dessert and a laser pointer demonstrate total internal reflection.
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Lesson Plan
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research

Ucar: Measuring Density by Bending Light

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Young scholars observe how different materials bend light, and how we can infer the nature of the material based on the amount it bends light rays.
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Handout
Cosmos 4 kids

Cosmos4 Kids: Exploration:telescopes

For Students 3rd - 8th
Learn how telescopes work .. terms like reflection, refraction, different kinds of lens, and more. The brief, to the point text makes this site most suitable for younger researchers.
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Handout
Georgia State University

Georgia State University: Hyper Physics: Behavior of Incident Light

For Students 9th - 10th
This site from Georgia State University is an indexing page for several other pages on the topic of reflection. Topics are treated in an understandable manner and utilize meaningful graphics.