How can the path of light be blocked between an object and the eye and the object STILL be see?

Sixth graders investigated this question, determining that the path must be blocked with something that lets light through it.  Using a wide variety of materials, students measured the amount of light that transmitted, or travels through each material.  Students discovered that some materials not only transmit light, but they also reflect light, too.  Great use of mathematics, sixth grade to gather evidence to support the development of your model for how we see things!

How can we take our consensus model for how we see things to explain how we see the sun during the day but not  at night?  How can we take that same model to explain why during certain times of the month, we see the moon in its entirety and then it seemingly disappears?

Sixth graders are applying their knowledge of our we see to other examples across other science disciplines.  The light bulbs went off when one student connected our light model to the earth, moon and sun.

"Mrs. Brinza...the earth is like the eye, and the sun is the light source.  When the moon is in a clear path, allowing light to reflect off of it, it's like the object we're trying to see.  Because the moon moves, there's times where there's not a clear path for it, and therefore, we can't see it."

Our next steps...recognizing that not every object reflects light, like the earth and the moon.  How can an object interact with light differently?

So when light scatters off a surface, we don't see a reflection and instead we just see whatever the surface is.  But the conditions for why we see things still stand true.  In order to see an object (whether that's a reflection or not), light still needs to reflect off a surface and back into our eyes.

We're taking this idea to venture into outer space.  Why do we see the moon sometimes, and not others?  How can we use this idea behind the conditions for why we see things to explain the changing appearance of the moon?  This phenomena is quite easy to explain once you understand why we see things (and why we don't!)  Check out the physical models we used to help explain the moon phases (and more specifically, why we see part of the moon when light from the sun scatters off its surface!)!!!

Do all surfaces reflect light?  

YES...they need to reflect light in order for us to see them.

So what does that mean for why we see a reflection in some objects, and not others?  Sixth graders completed a lab in which they compared the light meter readings from a mirror to that of a paper, keeping the flashlight position constant and changing the location of the light meter.

From our data, students quickly discovered the pattern from the data.  Light that strikes a mirror at one angle bounces off at the same angle, and that's seen in the data from the pattern that emerged.  The paper's surface wasn't as predictable, and therefore, doesn't have a pattern to generate a reflection.  Awesome work, sixth graders!