Friday, February 5, 2016

Today we began the second part of the Earth in the Universe unit which focuses on the moon once we took care of one last concept from the first part (angle of sunlight affects the length of a shadow).

We then did an experiment that simulated the rise and setting of the sun and how it affects the length of a shadow.  Students used a craft stick held up vertically by a clothes pin.  They used a flash light to simulate a sunrise, noon, and sunset by moving the flashlight in a complete arc over the craft stick.  They then traced the shadows and noticed that at noon the shadow was minimal due to the high angle.  

I had fun doing the same thing but with a black light (uv) flashlight and things colored with uv-reactive glowing paint.  Yellow highlighters also fluoresce under ultraviolet light.

Below is a video of me trying to demonstrate it using a black light (UV) flashlight on a stick and holder colored with uv-reactive paint.