Science: Sept. 14-18

This week, we started learning about light.  On monday we were just finishing up with the nature of science stuff (I think), and we started Tuesday by brainstorming thing we know about light.  There were two different hypotheses that we came up with.  They were:  (A)"If we were in a room with no light, we would not be able to see anything," and (B)"If there were no light, our eyes would adjust after a while."  I agreed with the first one.  We set up a test in which we would go under a desk, where there was no light, and see if we could read a sign.  We tested that on Wednesday, and these are my observations:  I could not see/ read anything.  So the conclusion hat we came up with is that you cannot see if there is no light.  The first hypothesis was correct.  This is good to know because it will be easier to understand the rest of what we do with light,  and we will know not to go anywhere with absolutely no light because we will not be able to see.   

On Tuesday, we also talked about the laser pointers.  All that we saw when we pushed the button was the light on the wall.  So, we all made hypotheses about how the dot got there.  I'm pretty sure that most people knew that it followed a path that went straight out to the wall.  My hypothesis was that there was an invisible path that went in a straight line, and the light only showed up on solid objects.  The test was that we would we would try to see the path by shining the laser through flour and other stuff.  I tried shining it through flour, water, and glass.  My observations: I could see the path through the flour, I could see where it passed through the glass, and I could see the path through water droplets splattering out of the sink.  My conclusion is that there is a path and you could see it through flour, water. and glass.  My H-D statement:  If the laser pointer does have a straight path to the dot, and we shine it through flour, glass, and water, then we should be able to see the path.  And my prediction matched my observations.  Other than helping us understand the rest of the light stuff, I think this would help if we were trying to break into a place that had the invisible laser path security things.

On Thursday and Friday, we discussed light reflecting off of objects.  We took a few minutes to do some experimenting with light bulbs and we made pictures.  My picture is of a light bulb with arrows coming off it in all directions.  The arrows represent beams or rays of light.  Some of the rays went off in all random directions, and a few hit a pencil.  Then I had some rays coming off the pencil in the area that the pencil had arrows going to it.  (Maybe if I'm bored, I'll make a picture and put it on here. Maybe.)  My notes I made on that were this: some beams bounce off the pencil and some continue to other places; the pencil blocks some of the beams and they don't go past it; beams reflect off objects.  I guess this let's people know stuff, like go in shade to stay cool because the sun's rays are being blocked and can't reach the shade.  I would kinda hope that people already know this.

Then we discussed how we see.  We had some hypotheses on the board that we would disprove.  My hypothesis/ picture thing was this:  A light bulb with beams going in all directions; some beams hit a marker and are reflected off that in all directions; some of those beams go into the peoples' eye; the image goes to the brain and the person sees the marker.  this hypothesis was right. This is an important idea because we are always seeing things but not thinking about it, and now we know how/why. 

We also began to discuss something else.  We had a picture of a light bulb, and three different things drawn on there.  Picture A had a speck on the bulb with a single ray.  Picture B was supposed to have a million rays, spanning out a little, but not so much.  Picture C was supposed to have infinite rays going in all directions, and some of the rays reflecting off a solid object and not getting past it.  I like picture C.  I don't think we finished talking about that, so there's nothing else I can say about it.