Time Show

Elliot - Dimming Disney Hall, Question 3

3. Look at Frank Gehry's building design both before and after 2003. What materials does he like to work with? post a picture.

After looking carefully at the pictures below, I think that he likes working with a lot of glass, very shiny metal and sometimes stone.

BEFORE 2003

I looked at some examples of Frank Gehry's work in Germany before 2003.

Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, 1989

Siedlung Goldstein, Frankfurt, 1994

Energie Forum, Bad Oeynhausen, 1995

Das Neue Zollhof, Düsseldorf, 1999

DG Bank, Berlin, 2000

Gehry Tower, Hannover, 2001

AFTER 2003

Then I looked at an example of his work every year since 2004.

Stata Center, Massachusetts, 2004

Marta, Germany 2005

Marques de Riscal Vineyard Hotel, Spain, 2006

IAC Headquarters, New York, 2007

Art Gallery, Ontario, 2008

Novartis Pharma, Basel, 2009

Lou Ruvo Center, Las Vegas, 2010
This is my favourite one!!

8 Spruce St., New York, 2011

Elliot - Thinking Prompt Three

Here's my drawing of the Sun, the Earth and the Moon

a closer look at the fine print on the bottom

Dimming Disney Hall

Using the visible thinking routine- Circle of Perspectives we explored the issue of a building which was too reflective!

We adopted different roles to help discuss the issue:
Architect
Professor of everything inc. Light
Neighbours
Metal expert
Mayor
Building Manager
Following  this we developed new lines of inquiry :

What can you find out?
1. Ask your parents, how does listening to different perspectives in your job help you to do a better job?
2. Have they experience of working with people from different cultural backgrounds, if so do they have to adapt their perspectives.

3. Look at Frank Gehry's building design both before and after 2003. What materials does he like to work with? post a picture.

4. Are solar panels reflective or as reflectve as polished stainless steel?

Elliot - WHY IS THE SKY BLUE AND THE SUN YELLOW?

I did an experiment at home to show how blue light scatters.

First I filled a transparent container with warm water.  Then I shone a torch through the container on to a white piece of paper.  The light on the paper looked white with a bit of blue around the edges.

Shining a Torch Through Clear Water

From the side the water was clear.

Side View

I then added some milk powder to make the water a bit cloudy so that the beam of light from the torch could be seen in the water.

Adding Some Milk Powder

It wasn't enough so I added even more.

Adding Even More Milk Powder

And then I stirred the milk powder so that it would dissolve in the water.  The water immediately appeared blue.

Stirring In the Powder

The light on the white paper appeared yellowish.

The Light on the White Paper

From the side you can see the contrast of the bluey water and the yellow spot on the white paper.

A Side View of the Milky Water and the White Paper

Explanation

When white light comes toward us through the earth’s atmosphere from the sun, it bumps into different gas molecules like oxygen and nitrogen and some of it gets absorbed.  Shorter-wavelength-light, like violet and blue, are absorbed more than longer-wavelength-light.  So the red, orange and yellow light pass straight through the atmosphere.  However, the absorbed violet and blue light are then radiated and get scattered all around the sky.  The sun puts out much more blue light than violet so the sky looks blue.  This is known as Rayleigh scattering, the English scientist who first described this.

Lord Rayleigh (1842-1919)

The sun appears yellow because when the shorter-wavelength-light, the blues and violets, are scattered from the direct rays of the sun the remaining colours together appear yellow.

Fionúir: What is shadow

What is shadow?

Have you ever wondered where your shadow comes     from? Well, it doesn’t just pop out of your body, you hopefully know! Please do read on for more …

If you go for a walk on a sunny summer’s day and the

sun is shining beautifully behind you, you can see your shady shadow. Why? Because light only travels in straight lines. It cannot bend around you so it goes past you!!! You block the light. See picture for examples.

Children and their shadows

To make it easier to understand, you can say that anything that the Sun can’t shine through has a shadow. For examples, bicycles, trees, buildings.

But light can partly shine through things like paper, clear glass, some light plastics. Shadow is always black

because the object absorbs the light.

Night and Day

The Sun can just light up one half of the Earth at a time. 

As we already know the Earth spins around once every 24 hours. It is not still! Therefore on one side it is day-time and on the other side it is night-time. Please see picture for examples.

Day and night

An example would be if your friend lives in America and you live in Germany and when you are at school working hard she or he is fast asleep in Noddyland having delightful dreams.

Our last teacher, Ms Howe is now sleeping lik

e a baby;=). 

She lives in Perth, Australia. 

Shadow Fun Activities

Shadow puppets

Try this out and have lots of fun!

It is easy to make your own puppet show.

You will need the following items:

a flat, light coloured wall

a torch

your hands

1. Shine the light on the wall.

2. Put your hand in front of the light and move it forwards until your hand makes a clear and  shadow.    

3.  Move your nimble little fingers into different shapes to look like animals.

Hope you all had 

fun trying out this simple little experiment to demonstrate shadows.

Thank you for reading my bit on shadows.

Cheers Fionúir

 

Fionúir: WHAT IS LIGHT

WHAT IS LIGHT

From the minute we wake up in the morning and open our sleepy, little eyes to the time we go to our cosy beds at night we can see delightful light.

We all enjoy looking at things like sunsets, cute cats, huge houses, fantastic flats, massive mountains, funny friends, sweet shops, lovely flowers!

Massive mountains

Light is a type of energy that lets us see. Light waves do not need a medium to travel through. But sound waves do. It can travel through a vacuun. So good news for Star War fans!!

Picture of light waves

We can’t touch light! We can’t smell it!!
When we see light we see bright and white light but we are actually wrong it is a mixture of yellow, red, green etc …

Well, if you don’t believe me try out this experiment …

Make your own rainbow 

Do this experiment on a sunny day.

You will need the following items:

a bowl filled with water
a mirror which should fit into the bowl
a piece of white paper

Instructions 
Put the mirror into the bowl and place it on a
window sill.
Hold the paper above the dish and mirror.
The mirror has to face the Sun so the reflected light shines onto the paper.
Now you can see the different colours.

What colours can you see? Does it look like a rainbow?

I can see a rainbow … 

(Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet)

A rainbow

the colors that make up the sun's white light 

Thank you for reading my contribution.

Cheers  Fionúir

Lino Picture of light properties

Neel: Thinking Prompt 3

Fionúir: Thinking Prompts

Thinking Prompts

Question 1

If you had to design a planetarium, how would you use the properties of light and sound?

Firstly, I would dim the huge spherical ball (planetarium) to show the film on a massive wall! And the film should be 3D to make the show unforgettable for everybody!

Secondly, I would have cool music playing in the background. Especially when there are exciting parts in the show!

Thirdly, I would have a person explaining the show to the audience so everybody can understand what it is all about. Connect the dots!!

Question 2

Why can’t they use flash photography inside?

Firstly, the light of the flash is brighter than the light of the projector so the image would disappear.

Today with our modern cameras a photo would be perhaps possible without a flash light.

Secondly, the flash would disturb the show!

Cheers  Fionúir

FIONÙIR, HOW DO WE SEE LIGHT

HOW DO WE SEE LIGHT

Have you ever thought about how we can see light? Or if animals can see the same way as we do?

Well, light is made up of tiny, tiny bits. When the Sun shines, trillions and trillions (1,000,000,000,000) of these light bits fall onto the Earth. These tiny bits or cells are called photons.

Photons

These photons bounce off almost everything and some of them enter our eyes and allow us to see!

Special cells in our eyes tell us what kind of light it is with the help of our brainy brains. These cells are called photoreceptors. They are found at the back of the eye in a layer called the retina. Please see my drawing of the eye. This word is easy to remember. Just think about elderly people in Germany who don’t work anymore, “Rentner”! Let’s connect the dots!!

Picture of the eye

Yellow part is the retina (cones and rods).

How do our photoreceptors work?

There are two types of photoreceptors.

They are cones and rods which are found in the retina. They have these names because of their shapes. They are easy to remember!! Just think about ice-cream cones and fishing rods!!

Diagram of a rod (black and white) and cone (colours)

 

A cone of yummy ice-cream and cones in your eyes!

A fishing boat and a fishing ROD. In the early morning in the DARK light.

There are three types of cones. And each one lets us see the main colours, red, blue and green.

Just think about lots of different ice-creams; strawberry (red), blueberry (blue), gooseberry (green)!). Cones are more sensitive than rods therefore we can’t see so well at night.

Rods let us see black and white. Just think about out on a fishing boat in the early morning with all the dark colours around.

You may have heard of colour blindness? What is colour blindness? Well, it is a genetic defect. Colour blindness affects 9% of people. Actually men have it more than women!!

Colour blindness

Some animals can see better than others. Some have more photoreceptors than others. You can see this by the animal that they kill. For example, if an animal kills another animal for food and that animal of prey is brightly coloured then the animal that kills can see lots of colours.

Interesting, isn’t it!!

Animal with its animal of prey

Hope you enjoyed reading up on how we can see.

Cheers for now …

Fionúir