Light Unit

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=56 BGCOLOR="#003333" TEXT="#F7F7FF" bgproperties="fixed" background="011a0a03.jpg"> <div> Light Unit</div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=135 BGCOLOR="#003333" TEXT="#F7F7FF" bgproperties="fixed" background="21fa0c01dduajq.jpg"> <div> <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Educators Science and Math Institute Ser"><U><B>Educators' Science and Math Institute Series</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id2.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="About the Series"><U><B>About the Series</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id117.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Goals"><U><B>Goals</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id3.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Institutes"><U><B>Institutes</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="lesson_plans_prepared_by_esmis_participants_.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Lesson Plans"><U><B>Lesson Plans</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id53.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Links"><U><B>Links</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id138.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Photo Albums"><U><B>Photo Albums</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="http://www.ed.mtu.edu/search.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.ed.mtu.edu/search.htm"><U><B>Search</B></U></A><A HREF="http://www.ed.mtu.edu/search.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.ed.mtu.edu/search.htm"><U><B> ESMIS</B></U></A></div> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" height=424 BGCOLOR="#EEEEEE" TEXT="#080000"> <div> Submitted by John A. Maki</div> <div>      This article is being written as a requirement for an Eisenhower Grant sponsored ESMIS Institute at Michigan Technological University during the Summer of 2002.  I applied for this grant and institute to expand my hori- zons in artistic expression in math and science education especially in my light unit for 6th grade science.  I felt going into this institute that I would discover several techniques and ideas to expand my light unit and I certainly did!</div> <div>      Initially, let me explain a little about what we do at Rudyard Middle School in our 6th Grade Science Unit.  We have 2 teachers that team teach Physical Science exclusively in the sixth grade.  Our seventh grade  science curriculum is exclusively Life Science and eighth grade science emphasizes Earth Science, Space and Weather.  My team teacher teaches simple machines, chemistry(using the mystery powders unit) and ecological understanding. The emphasis of my section of the curriculum is sound and light, theoretical chemistry (atoms, molecules and elements) , Newton's Laws and electricity and magnetism.  I try to do most of my teaching through hands-on experimentation with essential background reading usually done in class in shared reading assignments.</div> <div>      Perhaps I should at this point explain a little about my school district at this point, we are a rural school district in the Eastern Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  Rudyard Area Schools is a diverse district consisting of several small towns and a former U.S. Air Force Base.  Because of the large amount of low income housing on the former base (both Native American and not) , , the amount of our students coming from low income homes is high (62% eligible for free and reduced lunches.)</div> <div> This in turn results, in some years, with us having as many as 20 to 25 special education students integrated into our science classes.  This is one of the reasons that we find it is so important to use hands on learning and team reading in order for all students to have a chance for a successful science experience in the sixth grade.</div> <div>      The expectations that I have for my students in the light unit for 2002-2003 at Rudyard Middle School's sixth grade are the following.</div> <bR> <div> The student will learn:</div> <div>      A) that light travels in a straight line; B) that light can also be con- sidered a particle; C) that white light can be broken up into a spectrum; D) that light can be refracted and reflected; E) that light can be filtered and polarized; F) that light can cause chemicals to do work for us; G) that light can cause other objects to glow and phosphoresce; H) how your eye detects light and color; I) how colors are related and how we view paints and light differently.</div> <div>      My classroom is set up with stations for science and I will continue to use the station system with my new light unit.  I will use the following stations from my present light unit: the shadow station #1(A); the chalkdust station#2(A); the pinhole station#3(A); the prism station#4(C); the refrac- tion station#5(D); the reflection station#6(D)*. (Learning objectives in parenthesis)</div> <div>      The new stations that I'm adding to my light unit will be these: a polarizing station#7(C & E); a photo paper station#8(F)*; a glow in the dark blackbox#9(B & G);  a YUPO paper color work station#10(I).  I'll also have an extra credit exercise making a stained glass animal art project sta- tion#11 and an extra credit phosphorescent rock station#12.  We'll meet objective H by using a reading selection and several color blindness tests.</div> <div>      In my room the students typically enter the room, take their seats and we then read aloud about our subject for 15 minutes each day or I may lecture on our subject at this time.  Then the students, in lab groups of 2 or 3 students, go to the stations and work on the station's experiment, recording the results of their work in individual journals.  Once the lab group has completed their work at a station, they answer questions about that station, clean up and move on to another station.  Each unit is summarized for the students with a unit outline so as they finish a station, they check it off their outline.  The labs don't have to be done in any order, so the lab groups just move to a new station resume  their work.  About 10 minutes before the end of the hour, the students clean up and return to their seats for a sum up session on the day's work. At stations 6 and 8 the students will perform a complete concept to hypothesis to experiment to conclusion work up (we call this Process a Flex Your Brain Worksheet.)  At the other stations, procedures will be given to the students to follow on a written direction sheet which they copy into their journals.</div> <div>      For station#7 I'm going to I'm going to use 2 sheets of polarizing film to show how light can be filtered and a cube of Karo syrup to show how light can be changed by substances as shown to me by Dr. John Jaszczak at an ESMIS Institute this summer.</div> <div>      For station#8 I'm going to use a project that Jean Mannesto introduced to us at the ESMIS Institute using photographic paper to illustrate the way that light can cause a chemical reaction.</div> <div>      For my phosphorescence station#9 I'm using ideas garnered from an article by Scott P. Sibley and Christine McGuiness in <I>The Science Teacher</I> <I>April 2002 Issue</I> called “Glow in the Dark Science”.  In this article the authors discuss light as a particle rather that a wave and mention Albert Einstein's Nobel Prize work in explaining light as a particle using Planck's Constant.  This is not something that 6th grade students are usually exposed to but I think they can handle it. Therefore I'm going to adapt their methods to explore this topic with my students.  Sibley and McGuiness did this work with their students by class demonstration, but I'm going to build a blackbox to use at this station (Illustration 2.)  I'll follow their procedures using a laser pointer, a flashlight and a UV light to activate the particles in the glow in the dark stars. </div> <div>      For Station#10 I'm going to use YUPO paper, watercolors and color filter paddles to illustrate the difference between light filters and paint.  </div> <div>           For Station#11 I'm going to have the students use stained glass paper to build an animal that will refract light in different ways.</div> <div>      For Extra Credit station#12 I'm going to use the black box again to show how rocks can phosphoresce under different light conditions.</div> <div>      That's an idea of where we're going with this unit.  This unit is designed to meet the following benchmarks for the Michigan Science Curriculum:     Strand 1 Middle School (MS) 2-Design and conduct simple investigations. (Stations 6 and 8);</div> <div>        Strand IV Concept Strand (CS) 2 MS 2-Describe common chemical changes in terms of reactions and products. (Station 8);</div> <div>      Strand IV CS 4 MS 3-Explain how light helps us to see;</div> <div>      Strand IV CS 4 MS 4-Explain how objects or media reflect (Station 6), transmit (Station 9 & 10), absorb (Station7, 10 & 11), and (phosphoresce (Stations 9 & 11) light;</div> <div>      Strand IV CS 4 HS 3-Relate color to wavelength. (Station 7, 10,11 and 12).</div> <div>      The evaluation procedures that will be used in this unit are many and varied.  First off we will use an attitude and subject pre-test to help evaluate the student's attitude toward science and knowledge of the topic of light.  The student's journals will count about 70% of the final grade for this unit.  The rubric shown in addendum 2 will be the basis of the grading and is distributed to all students before the unit starts.  The 2 complete Flex Your Brain Worksheets will count another 10% toward the final grade. The final component of the grading system will be the post test and attitude survey (20%).  My students typi- cally work hard to complete their journals and seem to enjoy the freedom to work at their own pace to complete the stations.  (Each extra credit station is typically worth about 5% of the final grade, so it is possible for students to get more than 100% on a unit.)</div> <div>      I am really excited with the additions to this Light Unit and I think it will make my science classes even more interesting for my students.  The additions of the phosphorescence units, the photography paper unit and the painting and polarizing units should make for a better understanding among my students of the many concepts of light.  I also plan to do a special lecture on Einstein.  Everybody thinks that he got his Nobel Prize for the Theory of Relativity, however he really got it for his Particle Theory of Light. So that's my unit on Light for 6th graders at Rudyard Middle School, I hope my students enjoy it as much as I think they will.</div> <div> Illustration 1-Classroom Layout</div> <div> Illustration 2-Blackbox</div> <div> Addendum 1-Unit Outline for Students</div> <div> Addendum 2-Scoring Rubric</div> <div> Addendum 3-Attitude and Knowledge Pre-Test</div> <div> Addendum 4-Attitude and Knowledge Post-Test</div> <div> Addendum 1</div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> Light Unit Outline For Students</div> <div> 1. Station#1-Shadow Station-50 points</div> <div> 2. Station#2-Chalkdust Station-50 points</div> <div> 3. Station#3-Pinhole Station-50 points</div> <div> 4. Station#4-The Prism Station-100 points</div> <div> 5. Station#5-The Refraction Station-50 Points</div> <div> 6. Station#6-The Reflection Station-100 Points and Flex Your Brain-200           Points</div> <div> 7. Station#7-Polarizing Station-100 Points</div> <div> 8. Station#8-Photo Paper Station-100 Points & Flex Your Brain-200 Points</div> <div> 9. Station#9-Blackbox Station-100 Points</div> <div> 10. Station#10-Paint and Paddles Station-200 Points</div> <div> 11. Reading on the eye and color and light detection-200 Points</div> <div> 12. Color Blindness Tests-100 Points </div> <div> 13. Chapter Review-200 Points</div> <div> 14. Concept Map-100 Points</div> <div> 15. Station#11-Extra Credit-Build a stained glass animal-100 Points</div> <div> 16. Station#12-Extra Credit-Phosphorescent Rocks Station-100 Points </div> <bR> <bR> <div> Addendum 2</div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> Scoring Rubric For Light Unit</div> <div> In order to receive full credit for your journal the following conditions must be met:</div> <div> 1) Station Instructions copied into journal completely including the name of the station and the date you did it.</div> <div> 2) Explain what you did at this station.</div> <div> 3) Answer all questions on the station question card completely.</div> <div> 4) Drawing should be complete and well labeled.</div> <div> 5) Neatness counts in drawings and in your journal pages.</div> <div> 6) Any additional observations that you made at this station.</div> <div> Points may be deducted for the following:</div> <div> 7) Incomplete station instructions (usually 10 to 20 points.)</div> <div> 8) Incomplete answers to station questions (usually 10 to 10 points)</div> <div> 9) Sloppiness (usually no more than 5 points)</div> <div> 10) Incomplete or unlabeled drawings (usually 5 to 10 points)</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> Addendum 3</div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> Light Unit PreTest</div> <div> 1. Light travels in _________ straight lines.</div> <div> 2. Chalkdust shows us that _______________________________.</div> <div> 3. Light can be considered a particle and a wave (True or False)</div> <div>                                         Circle One</div> <div> 4. Refraction is_________________________________________.</div> <div> 5. What does a prism do to light?____________________________.</div> <div> 6. Mirrors ____________light.</div> <div> 7. What happens when you turn 2 polarizing lens 90 degrees to each other? ______________________________________________________</div> <div> 8. How can light be made to do work for us? ____________________</div> <div> ______________________________________________________.</div> <div> 9. What causes the objects in a black box to glow? ___________________________________________________      </div> <div> 10. How do paint and light differ in terms of color and the way our eyes see things? __________________________________________________</div> <div> ________________________________________________________</div> <div> ________________________________________________________</div> <div> 11. Are you color blind for any color sets?________________________</div> <bR> <div> 12. How does your eye detect light and colors? _____________________</div> <div> ________________________________________________________</div> <div> ________________________________________________________</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> Addendum#4</div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> Light Unit Post Test</div> <div>  1. Light travels in _________ straight lines.</div> <div> 2. Chalkdust shows us that _______________________________.</div> <div> 3. Light can be considered a particle and a wave (True or False)</div> <div>                                         Circle One</div> <div> 4. Refraction is_________________________________________.</div> <div> 5. What does a prism do to light?____________________________.</div> <div> 6. Mirrors ____________light.</div> <div> 7. What happens when you turn 2 polarizing lens 90 degrees to each other? ______________________________________________________</div> <div> 8. How can light be made to do work for us? ____________________</div> <div> ___________________________________________________o a special lecture on Einstein.  Everybody thinks that he got his Nobel Prize for the Theory of Relativity, however he really got it for his Particle Theory of Light. So that's my unit on Light for 6th graders at Rudyard Middle School, I hope my students enjoy it as much as I think they will.</div> <div> Illustration 1-Classroom Layout</div> <div> Illustration 2-Blackbox</div> <div> Addendum 1-Unit Outline for Students</div> <div> Addendum 2-Scoring Rubric</div> <div> Addendum 3-Attitude and Knowledge Pre-Test</div> <div> Addendum 4-Attitude and Knowledge Post-Test</div> <div> Addendum 1</div> <div> Light Unit Outline For Students</div> <div> 1. Station#1-Shadow Station-5</div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>