In scimatix we were learning about light, reflection, mirrors and lenses. I did this unit with Gabby.

Before we started this unit we watched  a documentary about bioluminescence. It was called Light on Earth and it was about bioluminescent animals and life and how use it and how they evolved to have their bioluminescence.

After we had watched that really cool documentary we started to look at what light is. We looked at how it traveled and how it produces heat and energy. We also looked at the different types of lights we have and the differences between them.

Then we started to learn about reflection. We started with plane mirrors and looked at the laws of reflection:

Then we started looking at concave and convex mirrors and if the image is real or virtual: real is when the lines meet and a virtual image is when they don’t. We also look at if the image was inverted or erect which is if it’s upside down or right side up.

concave:

Convex:

Then we looked at how concave mirrors are used as solar furnaces. It works because the light rays from the sun reflects off the mirror and meet in the middle and when all the light rays meet its concentrating the heat from the sun and creating a super hot furnace. They do this with massive mirrors. We went out side and tried this with a lot smaller of a mirror but it still worked.

After we had looked at mirrors and reflection we looked at lenses. For this the first thing we looked at was how light rays refract:

Then we looked at biconvex and biconcave lenses and what they did to the light that traveled through them:

After we did pretty much everything for this unit we watched another cool documentary, this one was about how most of the discoveries about optics where actually discovered by Arab scholars.

Over all this unit was really cool and lots of fun I learned a ton and hopefully with be able to remember it.