Year 3 Investigate Shadows

As part of their Science topic this half term, Year 3 have been learning about light. In the first lesson, they began by considering the fact that we need light to be able to see. Then they looked at which objects emit their own light and are luminous, and which objects are non-luminous. They compared different objects and thought carefully about whether some objects, such as the moon, emit their own light or are, in fact, reflecting light from a luminous object. In their second lesson, they looked at how much light can travel through opaque, transparent and translucent objects. By the third lesson they were developing an understanding of how light travels in straight lines and how this causes objects to create shadows. They applied this knowledge to a science investigation in which they answered the question ‘How does an object’s distance from the light source affect its shadow?’. Below are some photos of what they did to investigate their answer. The results of their investigation showed that the closer an object is to the light source, the bigger its shadow will be. They consolidated their learning by working in small groups to solve 6 clues that required them to answer questions relating to what they had learnt. Each clue generated a number that, when put together, gave them the door code to escape the ‘lighthouse’ – and they were very excited and proud of themselves when they managed to escape!