Sense-ational Science Day 3

We started with Gratitude Circle and then played “Eagle Eye (like hide and seek but the seekers are the eagles that can’t move from their nest and the hiders have to have one eye on the eagle at all times). 

Then we split into three groups that focused on different aspects of sight. One station focused on finding your blindspot and dominant eye, another was peripheral vision and the third was an experiment with bending light with lasers and acrylic shapes to demonstrate how our eye lens bends light for our eye to focus properly. 

Next we discussed the art form Pointillism and how close up a bunch of dots don’t look like anything until you step away and the dots form a picture. Then they created their own pointillism artwork. Afterwards,  we worked on the play during snack time and then went to the obstacle course. 

Next  we continued exploring sight with optical illusions. One station focused on mirrors (with a parabola and a face mixing mirror). Another station had goggles with mirrors that made everything upside down and they had to complete a simple task like stacking cups with the googles on.  There were also two depth perception illusions: one where you try to get a pencil through a washer with one eye closed  to demonstrate how we need two eyes for good depth perception and another with two circles that look the same size but are actually different. By removing clues to the actual size and distance of an object, you can trick your brain into thinking that two similar objects of different sizes are really the same size. 

 Then we ate lunch, finished their original play and went to the creek. At the creek, some played with clay while others caught whirligig beetles and minnows or built a dam.