Mirror Explorations
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Group 1
 | The class was split up into two groups. Each group explored a different idea, and then they shared their findings with the other half of the class. One group used a small mirror with a meter stick beside it. They had two identical markers. They put one in front of the mirror, and one on the other side(behind) the mirror. The image that showed up in the mirror was only of part of the marker in front. They moved the marker in back until the image and the marker in the back lined up so it looked like one full marker. They noticed that the two real markers were exactly the same distance from the mirror in front and in back. This meant that an image of an object appears to be the same distance behind the mirror that it really is in front of the mirror. |
Group 2
| The second group also explored where you can see an object within a mirror. Three students stood in front of a mirror. There was an object (a lamp) in front of the mirror also, but to the left. They were trying to figure out which student could see the image of the object in the mirror. They found that only one of them could see the lamp. Through exploration, they determined that the angle the light hit the mirror was the same angle that the light reflected back off of the mirror in the other direction. We later learned that these angles are called the angle of incidence (the going in angle) and the angle of reflection (the bouncing back angle). We further demonstrated this in class by quickly rolling a basketball against the wall. The ball bounced off the wall at the same angle that it was thrown against the wall at. |  |