School Improvement in Maryland

Using the State Curriculum: Science, Grade 5

Skills and Processes | Earth/Space | Life | Chemistry | Physics | Environmental

Lesson Seeds: The lesson seeds are ideas for the indicator/objective that can be used to build a lesson. Lesson seeds are not meant to be all-inclusive, nor are they substitutes for instruction.

Standard 5.0 Physics

Topic D. Wave Interactions

Indicator 3. Provide evidence to show that light travels in a straight line until it is reflected or refracted.

Objective a. Observe and describe the images formed by a plane mirror.

  • Size of the image
  • Apparent distance of the image from the mirror
  • Front-to-back reversal in the image.

Lesson Name

Image formed by a plane mirror

Activity

Ask students if they have wondered why the lettering on emergency vehicles such as ambulances is reversed. Put a student "in the driver's seat" facing a plane mirror and hold a piece of paper with the letters ECNALUBMA behind him or her as they appear on the front of an ambulance. Did the mirror reverse the image? Use a plane mirror and a transparency of the word "LIGHT" to show that an image is not reversed left to right by a mirror. Use a toy or other small three-dimensional object to show that an image in a plane mirror is reversed front to back.

A plane mirror image:

  • Is a virtual image
  • Has the same size as the original object
  • Is the same distance from the mirror as the original object
  • Is reversed front to back (not left to right)

Safety issue: Caution students to avoid looking directly into the beam of the laser.

/instruction/lessons/science/grade5/xml/5D3a.xml
Resources for Objective 5.D.3.a:
Clarifications | LESSON SEEDS | Public Release Items |