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Light Travel Investigation

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Light Travel Investigation

Use the investigation notes to work out how light travels and what happens when it meets different materials. Read carefully, record evidence and explain your ideas. Safety first: never shine a torch into anyone’s eyes.

Make sense of the evidence

A group tested three materials by shining the same torch at each one. Their notes are below. In a separate test, the group placed two cardboard sheets with holes between a torch and a screen. When the holes were lined up, a bright spot appeared on the screen.

Cardboard — almost no light was seen on the far side. A dark patch appeared on the screen behind it.

Clear plastic — most of the light was seen on the far side. The screen behind it looked bright.

Mirror — a bright patch appeared on a wall to the side of the torch.

1.Which material blocked most of the light, and what evidence supports your answer?

2.Choose the best description of how light travels from a torch through clear space.

In straight lines
In circles
In wavy lines
It stays still

3.Match each material with the best description of what it did to the light.

Cardboard
Clear plastic
Mirror

Light was reflected
Light was blocked
Light mostly passed through

4.Fill the blanks: A material that lets most light pass through is . A material that blocks light and makes a clear shadow is .

Plan a fair test

Ruby-Mae wants to find out whether changing the distance between a torch and an object changes the size of the shadow. She has a torch, one cardboard shape and a screen.

5.Which factor should Ruby-Mae change, and which two things should she keep the same to make this a fair test?

6.Put these steps in a sensible order by writing 1, 2 and 3: ___ Measure the shadow on the screen. ___ Move the torch a measured distance. ___ Place the cardboard between the torch and screen.

7.Predict what will happen to the shadow if the torch is moved closer to the cardboard, while the cardboard and screen stay in place. Explain your prediction.

8.In the aligned-holes setup, the bright spot appears on the screen. What does this result suggest about the path light takes?

9.True or false: If one cardboard sheet is moved so its hole is no longer in line with the other hole, the bright spot on the screen will probably disappear. Explain briefly.

10.The mirror sent a bright patch to a wall beside the torch. What happened to the light, and what is this change of direction called?

11.Name one natural source of light and one safety rule for using a torch during an investigation.