Lesson Title: Multimedia Light Presentation

Teacher: Steve Propheter

Subject: Physics Grade Level: 11/12
Time Required: 2 weeks
Topic: Light

Essential Question:
What is Huygen’s Principle?
What is diffraction and where is it found?
What is Young’s double slit experiment?
What is the difference between constructive and destructive interference?
What is white light made of?
What is refraction of light?
What is spectrum of light? ROYGBIV
What is interference by thin films?

Prerequisites (Prior knowledge)

Students should have a good understanding of waves and different properties
of waves at this time. They should be able to determine the velocity,
frequency, and wavelength of a wave.

Stage 1 – Desired Results

Content Area Standard(s) (include complete standard, not just standard #)

NYS Science Standards Standard 4: The physical setting
Key idea 4:
Energy exists in many forms, and when these forms change energy is conserved.
4.3 Explain variations in wavelength and frequency in terms of the source of the
vibrations that produce them, e.g., molecules, electrons, and nuclear particles.
i. compare the characteristics of two transverse waves such as amplitude,
frequency, wavelength, speed, period, and phase
ii. draw wave forms with various characteristics
iii. identify nodes and antinodes in standing waves
iv. differentiate between transverse and longitudinal waves
v. determine the speed of sound in air
vi. predict the superposition of two waves interfering constructively and
destructively (indicating nodes, antinodes, and standing waves)
vii. observe, sketch, and interpret the behavior of wave fronts as they
reflect, refract, and diffract
viii. draw ray diagrams to represent the reflection and refraction of waves
ix. determine empirically the index of refraction of a transparent medium

Key Idea 5: Energy and matter interact through forces that result in changes in motion.
5.3 Compare energy relationships within an atom’s nucleus to those outside the
nucleus.
i. interpret energy-level diagrams
© Gradel & Jabot 2009 (adapted from Jabot, Maheady, Rey 2005 (adapted from UbD, Wiggins & McTighe))
correlate spectral lines with an energy-level1 diagram

Intended Learning Outcome (Should define what students will know and be able to do and at what
level of mastery they should be able to do it.)
 Students will know… Student will be able to…
Huygen’s Principle …explain wave fronts and Huygen’s
principle accurately 100% of the time

Primary Colors of light …mix colors of light and determine the

Secondary Colors of light resultant color correctly 100% of the time

Primary Colors of Pigment …explain the difference between colors of

Secondary Colors of Pigment light and colors of pigments

Reflection …determine the angle of incidence and

angle of reflection correctly 95% of the time
Snell’s Law and refraction
…determine the angle of incidence, angle of
Total internal reflection refraction, indices of refraction and material
of mediums using snell’s law, correctly 90%
of the time.

…determine the critical angle for two

mediums correctly 90% of the time

© Gradel & Jabot 2009 (adapted from Jabot, Maheady, Rey 2005 (adapted from UbD, Wiggins & McTighe))
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 Stage 2 – Assessment Evidence
Students will demonstrate their learning/understanding in the following way(s):
Teacher-Created Assessments
Pre-test:
Students will take a 30 question pretest prior to initiating the unit on light.

Post-test:

Students will take the same exam as a post test to measure learning/understanding of
content
(Performance Assessments: )
HW Problems

Power Point Project

(Other Assessments: Peer, Self)

Students will be required to hand in a rubric along with their Power point project that
reflects how they think they did on the project. Categories on rubric will reflect actual
grading procedure with a specific explanation of how to earn points for each category.

(Assessment Adaptations)
All accommodations will be made for 504 and IEP’s that are required. Students will be
paired heterogeneously according to ability for the power point project. Students will
work closely with the teacher so progress is assessed often. The teacher will intervene
and make adaptations where needed. Students will have access to computers
throughout the entire project so spelling and grammar can be corrected.

© Gradel & Jabot 2009 (adapted from Jabot, Maheady, Rey 2005 (adapted from UbD, Wiggins & McTighe))
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 Stage 3 – Learning Plan
Learning Activities
Instructional Strategies/Learning Activities:
e.g., demonstration, discussion, small groups, role play, etc.

Students will be paired and assigned a topic on light to create a power point to present to the class
for review prior to the unit exam.

Introducing the lesson:

After the pre-test the teacher will begin the unit by using an exercise to get the students to
explain what they know and think about light:
The students have stumbled across a civilization that has no eyes. The civilization
hears them discussing “seeing” and thinks it is some kind of black magic. They are
holding the class captive and their only hope is to explain what light is. This is a
good way to get the students involved in the content.

Next the teacher explains the power point project that will be done by each group.

Instructional Sequence:
(representing the content: teaching/learning activities, connecting to students’ prior knowledge, etc.)

Teacher activity (The teacher is doing….) Student activity (The student is doing…)
st st
1 day: 1 day:

Teacher engages students in an activity to The students are engaging in a discussion

bring about the prior knowledge and of how to explain light to someone that has
conceptions of the class on the topic of no background knowledge of the topic.
light.

The teacher Introduces the unit of Light. The groups should ask questions about the
The power point project is explained first. project.
The students are paired with partners first.
The teacher explains that each student will
be assigned a subtopic of light. The groups
are responsible for creating a power point
presentation of that sub topic to be
presented in two weeks before the end of
unit exam. The rubrics are passed out and
explained. Each group is randomly
assigned a subtopic of light. Students are
encouraged to begin researching their
© Gradel & Jabot 2009 (adapted from Jabot, Maheady, Rey 2005 (adapted from UbD, Wiggins & McTighe))
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 subtopic right away. The power point
should review the main conceptual ideas
discussed in class and real world
applications and examples.

2nd day through 7th day:

Introduction :
Tell the students what ideas are to be
discussed during the lesson.

Ask the students a leading question. “What

do we know about light?” Discuss with the
students the ideas that they have. Lead
them in the direction of how it travels. We
want to arrive at the topic of the ray model
of light. Talk about Newton and how he
believed that light was a stream of fast
moving, unimaginably tiny particles called
corpuscles. Then speak of how light has
been proven to have wave characteristics
through experiment.

Ray model of light:

Light is represented as a ray that travels in
a straight path. In this model, light can only
change direction by an obstruction being
placed in its path. The students have heard
this idea before, so it should not have to be
explained too thoroughly for them to
understand it. This model was used as a
way to study how light acts with objects
whether it is particle or waves. This is
called ray optics or geometric optics.

Now ask the students where the rays of

light come from that we see? Help them
with ideas if needed. The rays come from
sources of light. Everything that we see is a
source of light whether it is luminous or
illuminated. Talk about the two sources
(luminous and illuminated) and give
examples, the sun, a light bulb, fire, a book,
pencil, etc… Explain why objects are
visible. Is light emitting light from it or is
light reflecting off of it?

Briefly discuss:
Opaque: where light is reflecting off of it but
© Gradel & Jabot 2009 (adapted from Jabot, Maheady, Rey 2005 (adapted from UbD, Wiggins & McTighe))
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 none is transmitted. (brick, book, wall)
Transparent: media that transmit light. (air,
water, glass)
Translucent: media that transmit light but do
not allow objects to be seen clearly. (lamp
shades, frosted light bulbs)

Speed of light:
Pick an object in the room and discuss how
the light has to travel a distance to the
object or how light from the illuminated
object has to travel a distance to be
received by the eye. Discuss on a bigger
scale how the light from the sun or moon
has to travel a distance to get to the earth.
Then bring up the formula for velocity and
how we know the distance and if we can
measure the time we can determine the
velocity. But how can we measure the
time?
Talk of Michelson/Morely
Michelson inferometer and ether.
Michelson measured the time it took light to
travel between two mountains in California
35 km apart. He used rotating mirrors to
measure the small time intervals. His best
result was (2.997996+0.00004) x 10^8 m/s.

Diffraction:
Turn of lights except for overhead or other
source of light. Place an object in the path
of the light and show the shadow. Notice
that the edge of the shadow is not perfectly
sharp. Why? This was done by Grimaldi.
The shadow is wider than the actual object
as it should be. Draw a diagram using rays
of light and show how the light should travel
in a straight line past the obstacle and
create a sharp edge of a light/dark border.
Look at the border of the shadow. It is
actually bordered by colored bands. Talk
about sound and this same phenomenon.
Talk about what happens when an obstacle
is placed in the path of sound. Now relate
this to light. The same thing happens in
light just on a much smaller scale. Use this
to lead into Huygens’s principle.

Huygens’s Principle:
© Gradel & Jabot 2009 (adapted from Jabot, Maheady, Rey 2005 (adapted from UbD, Wiggins & McTighe))
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 Each wave front can be thought of as a
series of point sources of smaller waves.
The wavelets expand in every direction and
are in step with one another. The wavelets
cancel each other out in all direction except
for where they all move in the same
direction. This is superposition. All of the
wavelets add together to get a new wave
front. When the new wave front passes
through a barrier, all the wavelets
recombine again to make a flat barrier
except at the edges where it rounds off. No
wave to cancel out roundness at edges.
Draw a diagram of Huygens’s principle
while discussing it. Use a compass to draw
a wavelet, of the same radius, from several
different points on a wave front.

Color:
Talk about light passing through a prism.
Show with demonstration of light passing
through prism projected onto the
whiteboard. Newton did experiments on
these colors produced by sunlight passing
through the prism. He called these colors
produced a spectrum. At first, Newton was
using his corpuscle model of light explained
that these colors were produced because
the particles of light were hitting some
unevenness or imperfection in the glass
itself. He placed another prism in the path
of the colored light expecting it to make the
effect worse or spread the spectrum out
even more. Instead in converted the
spectrum back into white light. He
concluded that white light was made up of
the colors of the spectrum, and properties of
the prism separated the light into the colors
of the spectrum.
Colors of the spectrum: ROYGBIV
Based on the diffraction of Grimaldi and the
Huygens’s principle, we know that light has
wave properties. Visible light has
wavelength from about 400nm to 700nm.
Going from red (with the longest wavelength
at 700nm) to violet (with the shortest at
400nm). Show spectrum. Talk about the
other colors.

© Gradel & Jabot 2009 (adapted from Jabot, Maheady, Rey 2005 (adapted from UbD, Wiggins & McTighe))
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 Explain how the white light refracts or bends
as it goes from air to glass to air. Each
different wavelength in the white light bends
at a different angle. This spreads out the
white light into a spectrum.

Colors by addition of light:

Additive color process:
Discuss how white light can be formed by
other colors of light being added together.
Tell the students that by using red green
and blue you can make white light. Do
demonstration using the light box. This is
used in televisions and projectors (RGB).
Use shadow arm in the light box to show
how blocking different color lights creates
different colors (yellow, cyan, magenta).

Primary, Secondary and

Complementary:
Ask the students what the primary colors
are. They will most likely say red, yellow
and blue. This is what they are taught in art
class. (Red and yellow make orange,
yellow and blue make green, and red and
blue make purple). Discuss how it is
different for light. Red, Blue and Green are
the primary colors for light because the
produce white light. The primary colors can
also be mixed to produce additional colors.
Red and green make yellow, red and blue
make magenta, and green and blue make
cyan. The colors yellow, cyan and magenta
are known as secondary colors because
they are combinations of two primary colors.
Look at the light box again. Notice that the
yellow light and the blue light create white
light. The green and magenta lights make
white light. And the red and the cyan make
white light. These colors are known as
complementary colors if they make white
together.

Color by subtraction:
Start a discussion on how light can be
transmitted, reflected and absorbed. The
color of an objected depends on what the
color of the light is that is illuminating it and
the wavelength of light absorbed and
© Gradel & Jabot 2009 (adapted from Jabot, Maheady, Rey 2005 (adapted from UbD, Wiggins & McTighe))
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 reflected by the object itself. The pigment
or dyes in an object give it color.
A dye is a molecule that absorbs certain
wavelengths of light and reflects or
transmits others. When light falls on an
object, the wavelengths that are absorbed
are turned into energy by the object, the
wavelengths that are reflected or
transmitted give the object the color. Give
examples of different objects in the room.
The difference between a dye and a
pigment is that pigments usually are make
of crushed minerals, rather than plant or
insect extras. A pigment that absorbs only
one primary color and reflects two from
white light is a primary pigment (yellow,
cyan and magenta). A pigment that
absorbs two primary colors and reflects one
color is called a secondary pigment (red,
blue and green). Give examples. Notice
that the primary pigment colors are the
secondary light colors and the secondary
pigment colors are the primary light colors.

Mixing Pigments:
Yellow and cyan make green
Yellow and magenta make orange
Magenta and cyan make purple
Printers use magenta, yellow, and cyan to
make images. Pigments are usually finely
ground compounds such as titanium (IV)
oxide (white), Chromium(III) oxide (green),
and cadmium sulfide (yellow).

Polarization:
Ask the students if any of them have
polarized sunglasses. If yes, ask them if
they know what they do. If no, ask them the
same question. What makes them so
special compared to regular sunglasses.
Ask if anyone has ever looked throught
polariezed lenses (if nobody owns a pair of
sunglasses). If yes, Ask them if they have
ever rotated the glasses while looking
through them. What happened? Light
reflected off the road will get light and dark,
some other sources of light will also get light
and dark. The polarized lenses will block
some forms of light in one position but will
© Gradel & Jabot 2009 (adapted from Jabot, Maheady, Rey 2005 (adapted from UbD, Wiggins & McTighe))
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 allow them to pass when rotated to other
positions. Why? Polarization is the
production of light in a single plane of
oscillation. Give examples of a single
plane. Begin a discussion involving the
rope model. Get out the rope and create
transverse waves with it. How can we block
this wave. Use a barrier of some sort. Now
create the wave perpendicular to its
previous orientation but keep the barrier the
same. Have the students notice how the
wave is now able to pass through. Show
the diagram of the rope model from the
book (fig. 16-16). Polarized media are
made up of long molecules in which
electrons can oscillate all in the same
direction. As light travels past the
molecules, the electrons can absorb light
waves that oscillate in the same direction as
the electrons. This allows waves passing in
one direction to pass while it blocks others.
Waves vibrating parallel to the polarizing
axis can pass. Light usually contains waves
vibrating in all directions perpendicular to
the direction of travel.

8th day:

Students will begin to give their

presentations using power point. After the
presentation, students will hand in the rubric
for their presentation.

Adaptations to the Instructional Sequence to Differentiate:

Discussion and Assessment of Learning:

(Pointing out to students how what they are learning is related to the driving question; assessing students’
learning as a result of the lesson)

Each presentation will be associated with a discussion following the presentation. Students will attempt to
answer questions and lead discussion in the conceptions that relate to their subtopic. This will be carefully
monitored by the teacher to assure correct information is being taught. Students will be graded according to
the project rubric.

The presentations are a review for the post exam.

Closure:
Extensions for early finishers:
Early finishers will join other groups to help them with ideas and to learn ideas for their
presentation. They will be given a chance to go back and improve their project if
© Gradel & Jabot 2009 (adapted from Jabot, Maheady, Rey 2005 (adapted from UbD, Wiggins & McTighe))
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 necessary.
Procedures:
(already established procedures to be used and procedures to be taught for this lesson)

© Gradel & Jabot 2009 (adapted from Jabot, Maheady, Rey 2005 (adapted from UbD, Wiggins & McTighe))
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 Lesson Development Resources
Technology Tools and Materials:
(classroom set-up, preparations, resources, etc.)

Projector
Computers
Power point

(Contact Information)

steve propheter
99spropheter@jamestown.wnyric.org

© Gradel & Jabot 2009 (adapted from Jabot, Maheady, Rey 2005 (adapted from UbD, Wiggins & McTighe))
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