Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Light Exploration: Colored Shadows





The children have been showing a very strong interest in light and shadows. We have been experimenting a great deal with the overhead and noticed the children were intrigued by where the light was coming from. We began experimenting with colored lights this week, in an attempt to create a colored shadow (something both the teachers and children were curious about after our strange turn of events during a lesson last week…. contact paper is not transparent, so we learned). The first few days we used red and blue lights. When Ms. Stine joined us in the classroom on Friday, she brought the yellow light with her as well.

Some things we noticed:


*Using two lights creates two shadows


*The shadows appear more transparent as we move closer to the light source


*The shadows move side to side as you move closer to the light source (less overlap of the shadows)


*White light creates black shadows, but colored lights can create colored shadows, sometimes

Questions to ponder:


*Can we create colored shadows using white light?


*What happens when we use a black light?


*3-d glasses are red and blue, what would happen if we wear them while exploring with those colored lights?







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