In Design and Technology, we are going to be designing and making torches and in Science, we are looking at light, so we decided to link the two. We wanted to learn about how light is reflected from surfaces, so we set up an investigation to see which materials reflected the most light. We thought we would then use that material to surround the bulb when making our torches later in the half-term.

To do this, we linked with our local secondary school (Ullswater Community College) to borrow their data loggers, so we could measure the amount of light that was reflected accurately. We enjoyed predicting which material would reflect the most light and then measuring this to see if our predictions were correct. We talked about taking a sample of measurements and the importance of doing this to make the results more accurate. 

UCC had a lot of light resources that we don't have and allowed us to borrow them. We had a lot of fun using the resources, talking about what was happening and using written and drawn diagrams to show what we discovered. We used:

• ray boxes to see in what direction light travels and how this could be changed using mirrors,
• infrared thermometers to measure how much infrared is generated within different objects,
• glass prisms to see what colours are used to make white light and how light is reflected differently through the prism,
• concave and convex mirrors to see how light is reflected differently.

Thank you Becky Grace and UCC.