Today we started out with Finley asking a question, "what would happen if light were to pass through a cube of water, a cube of glass, or a cube of helium?" We had to work and find out what would happen with our groups. After time was up, Fin asked 3 people to go up to the white board and draw out their ideas about the light passing through their assigned cube. The 3 people then sat down and waited for Fin's observation on their drawings. Fin asked other people to explain the drawings, and Fin said that they were all correct. Then he asked why the glass and the water was different. People said that the glass is more dense that water; when it's more dense, it moves toward the normal line. Then, people tried to explain the helium. JP drew that helium is less dense, so the light moves away from the normal line. After the explanations were done, Fin gave us 3 activities. First, he said we were going to experiment wth triangular prisms. We had a normal lazer pointer and a flash light. We had to shine the lights in all directions around the light. But with the flash light, he wanted to shine the flash light going down towards the triangle. We had to obsereve, describe, draw, explain and relate. In the drawings, he wants all the light rays coming out the flash light pic. Finally, we had to take a pen/pencil and put it in a pitcher of water, and draw a pic. of why the ruler was closer; that part was bonus. We then broke into our groups and started the experiment. Right when we start, the fire alarm goes off. The drill only took 3 minutes and we came back in and finally started to work. In my group, we predicted that when we shine the lazer from the top, the lazer will reflect off the sides, and come out the top. When we tested the lazer, our prediction was correct that the lazer would reflect back up, but there were numerous other lazers reflecting out of the triangle. We did a few more tests and recorded our observations. Then the period was over, handed in our materials, and left the room.

WR