Thursday, March 4, 2010

Iridescence in nature

Today went too well. I was able to get though only about have of what I had planned for the day. The students are looking at the following objects: a peacock feather, a beetle wing, a milkweed silk, and a sea shell. All of these objects have something in common. It took over an hour to guide the students through the lesson that finally lead to their discovery that they all exhibit iridescence.  Next week, we will look at how light interacts with surface structure and how not all color is created by pigmentation. We will test out the wings of the blue morpho butterfly to see if it gets its color from structure or pigmentation and then attempt to create iridescence using all that we have learned about how light reacts with surface structures. Super exciting lesson next week. I hear that Dr. Tracy from the UW may join us.

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