At-Home Activities

As a follow up to the Try This activity in this lesson, repeat the activity at home. For example, use mirrors to view your television screen as a mirror image. Draw a diagram to show the angles of light. Note how viewing in this manner feels after few minutes.

• Locate various bulb types, locations and quantities inn your home and organize this information in a chart.
• Draft a question about light bulbs that will generate data and can be answered through a market survey. (For example: Are long-life bulbs a better buy? Which local store offers the best buy for incandescent/fluorescent bulbs? How many different types of incandescent bulbs are available?) Plan a procedure, conduct your market research and report your findings to your class or family members.

Entertain your younger siblings or family acquaintances with a shadow puppet story.

Classify materials in your bedroom as transparent, translucent or opaque. Organize the information in a data table.

Look through magazines to locate photographs that use light to create different effects. For each photo, explain to family members the effect that you think the photographer was trying to create. How is the subject of the photo lit to achieve the effect?

• When travelling in a vehicle after dark, observe the difference between the high and low beams of the vehicle's headlights. Draw a diagram and explain how the headlight sends out a low and high beam. Ask an adult driver when high and low beams are used for driving.
• If you know someone who has a vehicle equipped with fog lights, examine the fog light's structure and describe how it works.

Based on what you have learned about light in this unit so far, prepare an interior designer's guideline for selecting lighting for one room in a home.

Arrange mirrors in your bedroom to see a back view. Draw an aerial view of the room showing the placement of the mirrors and the incident ray and reflected ray.

Search your home for a polished, curved surface. Identify the type of curve and describe the image that it creates. (Possible examples include chromed parts on cars, large silver spoons, metallic balloons, lacquered furniture, etc.)

Check the side-view mirror on the passenger side of various motor vehicles. Is there a message printed on the mirror? If so, does the message indicate that the mirror is concave or convex? What features of this type of mirror make it a good choice for this function?

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Look around your home to identify examples of devices that use lenses. What is the lens type in each case? (This will help you answer Making Connections question no. 7.)

List at least six situations in which a magnifying glass would be useful at home.

Look in an instruction booklet for a still camera or a video camera to identify tips for taking photographs or videos.

Survey food containers in the kitchen cupboards to identify colours used in food packaging. (For example, what are the most common colours for print, background screens, pictures, etc.?)

• Identify all the technology in your home that uses radiant energy. (List the name of the device and the type of electromagnetic waves that are used.)
• Explore a 10-megahertz section of the AM or FM radio dial and identify each radio station's location and call letters within that band width.

Conduct a survey to identify as many optical devices as possible. Identify location, use, and give a brief description of how the device works.

Plan the lighting for an entertainment event of your choice (e.g., a school dance, play, ceremony, etc.). Create a colour-coded diagram (aerial view), indicating spotlight colours, light placement and the resulting effects.

Use a magnifying glass to examine the arrangement of colour dots on a television screen. Draw a diagram of the arrangement. (Be careful not to stare too long at the television screen.) (The diagram should show an arrangement of at least three coloured dots (or bars) which are green, red and blue.

With family members, observe some televised music videos and take note of the various lighting effects employed. Discuss how the effects were achieved.

Using only yellow, cyan and magenta water-based markers or paints, create a picture that has as many colours as possible.

Use a magnifying glass to examine a colour photograph from a magazine or newspaper. Draw a diagram and include an explanation of your observations. Now examine one of the colour photographs in your science text. Identify three factors to consider when establishing print quality.

Identify three or four ways in which the sun heats your home.

Note to parents: Since the Design Challenge may be used by teachers as a performance assessment opportunity, parents should consult with the teacher to determine the appropriate degree of parental involvement in their child's completion of the Design Challenge.

The Unit Summary in your textbook lists all the learning expectations you have covered in the unit and identifies the specific lessons in which the knowledge and skills have been developed.

You can use the Unit Summary to help you create a personal study guide in preparation for an end-of-unit test:

1. Copy down the list of learning expectations from your textbook. These are grouped under three headings: Understanding Concepts, Applying Skills, Making Connections.
2. For each learning expectation, locate the appropriate lesson(s) in the unit where the expectation was covered. These are found at the end of each expectation (e.g., 2.1).
3. Flip to the appropriate lesson(s) for each expectation and make study notes of the key ideas or skills you learned.