Exploring My Light Sensors

Opening Discussion

Ask your students if they’ve ever taken a close look at their eyes. Have they ever looked in a mirror when it was dark in the room and someone turned off the light, or when it was light and it got darker? Did they notice anything happening with their eyes?

The Challenge

Make a drawing of your eyes, and see if you can catch them doing something interesting!

Doing the Activity

1. Hand out a mirror, magnifier, paper and drawing tools to each student.
2. Have your students make a drawing of one of their eyes. Ask them to be good observers, and to draw anything they notice. They can use the magnifiers if they want to get a closer look.
3. Tell your students that you’d like to turn the lights off for 1 minute, then you’ll turn them back on, and as soon as you do, you’d like them to look at their eyes in the mirror and see if they notice anything.
4. Turn off the lights so it is as dark as possible in the room. Your students can close their eyes if they’d like.
5. After 1 minute or so, ask your students to hold their mirrors up so that they are looking at their eyes as soon as the lights turn on. Tell them that you’d like them to make a new drawing of what they notice.
6. Turn the lights on, and have your students make their drawings.

Let’s Talk About It

After each child has made their drawings, gather them together to talk about what they noticed. Post everyone’s drawings on a wall and have them look at everyone else’s eye sketches. Do they notice anything similar? Anything different? What happened when the lights were turned back on. Did it surprise them?

Build On What They Talked About

Pair your students up and have them look at each other’s eyes when the lights are off and on and make drawings of what they see. Do they notice their partners’ eyes behaving the same as theirs did?