Labs for Reflection and Mirrors
Lesson Plans || Learning Outcomes and Activities || Teacher Notes || Labs
We have a collection of ~150 labs in the Laboratory section of the website. Each lab was intended to be used with a lab notebook where students report their data and findings and state their conclusion with supporting evidence and reasoning. The intent was to provide a relatively clear purpose (or question) to students that they would need to address AND to limit the amount of directions. The hope is that the purposes and students' ability to design a procedure would drive the lab activity (in contrast to a detailed set of step-by-step procedures being the driving force of students' activity). As such, each of our labs comes with a Question and Purpose and a short paragraph describing what should be included in students' lab report. On occassion, students are also provided a graphic organizer, data table, or other item to be taped into their notebook. The following pages may be useful for those teachers who wish to adopt or simply trial our Labs with a Purpose approach:
Our Thoughts on the Approach || About Lab Notebooks || Teacher Guides for All Labs
Lab 1 - Reflection Lab
Question:
What general principle could be stated to describe how light reflects off a plane mirror surface?
Purpose:
To determine a general principle which describes the manner in which light reflects off a plane mirror surface.
A complete lab write-up includes a Title, a Purpose, a Data section (with provided graphic and several labeled laser light paths), a Conclusion and a Discussion of Results. The Conclusion should include a generalized statement expressed in your own words which describes how light reflects off a mirror. The Discussion of Results should describe how the findings reported in the Data section logically lead to the conclusion which you have made. Specific trials that justify your conclusion should be identified.
View: Teacher's Guide
Lab 2 - Plane Mirror Image Lab
Question:
How does the distance from object to the mirror compare to the distance from the image to the mirror?
Purpose:
To compare the object's distance from the mirror to the image's distance from the mirror.
A complete lab write-up includes a Title, a Purpose, a Data section, a Conclusion and a Discussion of Results. The Data section should include a mirror line (labeled), three sets of incident and reflected rays originating from the same location, extensions of reflected rays to show image location, and clearly labeled measurements of object and image distances. The Conclusion should respond to the question raised in the Purpose of the lab (as always). The Discussion of Results section should discuss the supporting evidence for the conclusion; should include a percent difference calculation for the image and object distance.
View: Teacher's Guide
Lab 3 - What Portion ... ?
Question:
How does the amount of mirror required to view an image of yourself compare to your height? Does the distance from the mirror affect your answer?
Purpose:
To use laser light in order to compare the portion of a mirror required for a person to view him/herself to the height of the person.
A complete lab write-up includes a Title, a Purpose, a Data section, a Conclusion and a Discussion of Results. The Data section should include the provided diagram with laser-guided incident and reflected rays showing the path of light from the head and toe to the eye for two different object locations; measurements should be clearly made and labeled on the diagrams. Class data should be included in the Data section. The Discussion of Results should include a discussion of how the collected data lead logically to the stated conclusion. The Discussion section should also include an error analysis comparing the experimental results to the expected results; a percent error analysis might be included.
View: Teacher's Guide || Data Table
Lab 4 - Exploring Curved Mirrors
Question:
How does the orientation and relative size of an image change as the object is moved from a position close to a concave mirror (and a convex mirror) to a position very far away?
Purpose:
To describe the changes in the relative image size and image orientation which are observed as a person moves from a position very close to a curved mirror (both concave and convex) to a position very far away.
A complete lab write-up includes a Title, a Purpose, a Data section (with organized observations for the two types of mirrors), and a Conclusion/Discussion. The Conclusion/Discussion section should include a discussion of the manner in which the relative image size and orientation change as the object moves from a nearby position to a distant position. The discussion should include both types of curved mirrors.
View: Teacher's Guide
Lab 5 - Finding Smiley
Question:
How can a graphical representation of object distance and image distance be interpreted? What meaning can be gleaned from the graph?
Purpose:
To graphically represent the relationship between the object distance and the image distance (for a concave mirror) and to glean meaningful information from the graph.
A complete lab write-up includes a Title, a Purpose, a Data section, a Conclusion/Discussion. The Data section should include a table of dobject and dimage data and a plot of image distance vs. object distance. A best fit line should be included on the plot; strategic locations and distances should be marked (for subsequent reference in the Discussion section). The Conclusion/Discussion section should describe the relationship between the two quantities and extract a wealth of meaning regarding object-image distance relationships. Writing should be clear, specific and thorough.
View: Teacher's Guide || Data Table
Also Available ...
Physics teachers may find the following
for-sale tools to be useful supplements to our Lesson Plan and Pacing Guide section:
- Task Tracker Subscription (annual purchase)
A subscription allows teachers to set up classes, add students, customize online assignments, view student progress/scores, and export student scores. Task Tracker accounts allow your students to begin assignments in class or at school and to finish them at home. View our Seat and Cost Calculator for pricing details.
- The Solutions Guide
We publish a free curriculum with >200 ready-to-use Think Sheets for developing physics concepts. The Solutions Guide is a download containing the source documents, PDFs of source documents, and answers/solutions in MS Word and PDF format. An expanded license agreement is included with the purchase. (Cost: $25 download)
- Teacher Presentation Pack
This is a large collection of downloadable content packed with nearly 190 Microsoft PowerPoint slide decks, the corresponding Lesson Notes (as PDF and fully-modifiable MS Word format), about 170 animations (in .gif, .png, and .mp4 file formats), a countless number of ready-to-use images (including the original source documents that would allow for easy modification of those images), and a license that allows teachers to modify and use all the content with their classes on password-protected sites (such as course management systems). (Cost: $40 download)
- Question Bank
We distribute a Question Bank that includes more than 9300 questions neatly organized according to topic. The Question Bank is the perfect tool for busy teachers or new teachers. Even if you don't use the website with your classes, the Question Bank will assist you in quickly putting together quizzes, tests and other documents with high-quality questions that target student's conceptions of physics principles. And if you do use The Physics Classroom website, the Question Bank is the perfect complement to the materials found at the website. (Cost: $25 download)