How do various optical devices work?


Targets
At the end of this unit, you should be able to answer the following questions:

1. Where is light found in our world? (sun, electric lights, objects that glow)

1.1 What objects emit their own light? What objects need a light source to be seen?

1.2 How is looking at the sun or bright light dangerous?
2. How does light interact with other materials?

2.1 How can we use light to classify objects as transparent, translucent, or opaque?

2.2 How do objects create shadow?
3. How does light travel?

3.1 What happens when light hits a surface? (absorbed, reflected, or refracted)

3.2 How can light be broken into colours or combined to make a new colour?

3.3 How do various optical devices work?
Targets
Consider all the things you have discovered about light so far. Light can pass through things, bounce off things, and bend as it moves through certain materials. Light allows us to see colour, and these colours can be separated or combined to make new colours. With everything that light can do, you will not be surprised that we use light in a wide variety of useful devices.

Light can be used to…

see things that are very small


see things that are far away

take pictures


or even make interesting designs.