CLIC Light Lab

We recently wrapped up our unit on light energy with a visit to CLIC. Students had an opportunity to work with light in hands-on experiments using lasers to understand how light acts in fiber optic cables. Mrs. Larussa explained how these properties of light have implications in our everyday technology (cell phones, Internet, cable television just to name a few).  Pretty amazing to think that the seemingly simple stuff we study in 5th grade science has application to the real world.

         Light moving through a stream of water.  The light follows the path of the water.

Observing light reflecting through gelatin "fiber".

Change Is Simple

     Today we had educators from Change Is Simple visit our classroom to teach us about energy--where it comes from, how much different appliances in our households use, and what we can do to not waste it.  They brought hands-on activities to really help the students understand the value of energy.  Did you know that a hairdryer uses almost 1300 watts??!  That's about 100 times as much energy as an LED bulb.  And a small, handheld vacuum cleaner uses over 200 watts.  It makes you rethink using a simple broom or dust mop to clean your floors.  And cranking up enough energy to light a standard incandescent bulb takes a lot of hard work!

     Change Is Simple will be visiting our school periodically until the end of the school year, bringing more hands-on opportunities to learn about energy and what simple changes we can make to impact our world.  Check them out at their website http://www.changeissimple.org/

Cranking away to light a 60 watt incandescent light bulb!




Patrick showing us a "model home" and where we can save energy.
















Gillian using a wattage meter to show how much energy is used by different common appliances in our homes.