Prepared hands-on materials, full year grade-specific curriculum, and personalized live professional development designed to support mastery of current state science standards.
Designing a Library
When most people think of libraries, they think of books. But for Daniel Heuberger, a public library needs more than books. It also needs to draw people in and make them feel comfortable inside.
Daniel is an architect who helped to design the Bronx Library Center. This library is in the Bronx in New York City. Daniel and his team had two goals with their design. They wanted to make the building feel open and accessible to people on the outside. And they wanted to maximize the natural daylight on the inside.
What is Light?
All light is a form of kinetic energy that travels through space. All light has a source. The sun is the largest source of light on Earth. The sun’s energy travels through space to Earth. When it reaches Earth’s surface, it is absorbed by the planet and changed into heat. When it is absorbed by plants, it is changed into chemical energy through photosynthesis. Ceiling lights, lamps, and flashlights are also sources of light.
Light is complex, and there is still much that scientists don’t know about it. There are different models of light that scientists use to better understand how light moves and how it interacts with matter.
One model is a wave model. This is because in many instances, light behaves in a similar way to sound or water waves. Another model is a ray model. This is the model explored in this unit. This model describes how light moves in a straight line. These straight-line paths are called light rays. Whenever you see a narrow beam of light, it is actually a bundle of many parallel light rays. The ray model is useful for exploring how light interacts with different materials.
Light and Matter
Whenever a light ray interacts with matter, the light ray changes in some way. When a light ray comes into contact with matter, it can be reflected, refracted, or absorbed.
Reflection occurs when a light ray bounces off of the surface of an object. Refraction occurs when a light ray passes from one medium to another and changes its direction. Unlike reflection, the light ray moves through the second material when it refracts. However, the direction of its path changes. Refraction is what happens when you look at an object that is partly in water and partly in air. The object appears bent at the water’s surface because the light rays move in a different direction through the water than through the air.
When a light ray is absorbed by an object, the light energy turns into heat. Dark-colored objects absorb more light than light-colored objects. This is why they warm up faster.
KnowAtom incorporates formative and summative assessments designed to make students thinking visible for deeper student-centered learning.
Discover hands-on screens-off core science curriculum for student centered K-8 classrooms. KnowAtom supports classrooms with all hands-on materials, curriculum, and professional development to support mastery of the standards.
