After our experiments with the light boxes, students are starting to gather evidence for how light behaves. Using a light bulb, students recognized that light travels in straight lines, comes out in all directions, continuous on forever, and only stops when something blocks it from continuing onward.
We've officially defined a model as anything that illustrates or explains how a phenomena works. This means it can be a graph, a drawing, words, or even a simulation. Many different models exist that explain scientific phenomena.
While each model can help explain something, no model is perfect. There are strengths and weaknesses to every model. For example, in the picture above, students recognized that the model to show how light behaves showed light traveling in straight lines and in many directions, the cars just "stopped," indicating that light somehow stopped, too, without anything blocking it. Students also acknowledged that the model did not show the 3-D aspect of light coming out from a bulb, and that our model only showing the light moving to/from the bulb.
Taking what they learned from developing a model to explain how light behaves, students worked in teams to develop their own physical models for how people see.
Check out their work! Groups will be analyzing their models in depth to acknowledge if they represent how people see objects, including the strengths and weaknesses of their models.
We've officially defined a model as anything that illustrates or explains how a phenomena works. This means it can be a graph, a drawing, words, or even a simulation. Many different models exist that explain scientific phenomena.
While each model can help explain something, no model is perfect. There are strengths and weaknesses to every model. For example, in the picture above, students recognized that the model to show how light behaves showed light traveling in straight lines and in many directions, the cars just "stopped," indicating that light somehow stopped, too, without anything blocking it. Students also acknowledged that the model did not show the 3-D aspect of light coming out from a bulb, and that our model only showing the light moving to/from the bulb.
Taking what they learned from developing a model to explain how light behaves, students worked in teams to develop their own physical models for how people see.
Check out their work! Groups will be analyzing their models in depth to acknowledge if they represent how people see objects, including the strengths and weaknesses of their models.