Science 8 – I showed the classes a video of pool balls bouncing on a pool table. From this, the students were broken into groups and asked to come up with a rule that describes the path that the balls travel when bouncing. They wrote their rule down on whiteboards, and almost all groups independently came up with the Law of Reflection. A few groups wondered if the ball always bounces back in a 90º angle.
The students were then asked to shift their rule over to the reflection of light. On their whiteboards I drew where I would place a mirror and a laser. They had to predict the path that the reflected laser would take. Most students did not have a protractor, but most came pretty close. The photo above shows one group that came very close.
BC Physics 180 