Shedding Light on the Subject

Lesson Launch Video Transcript

 

TEACHER

Shedding Light on the Subject. Have you ever noticed how the amount of light differs the further you are under water? I’d like you to consider the environment of the dolphins pictured and how the light intensity changes from the surface of the water to the bottom of the ocean. So thinking about light intensity, I’d like you to answer these two questions, or work on these two problems for a minute. I’d like you to write one or two questions whose answers will be mathematical equations. And I’d like you to predict what kind of graphs and equations are involved in answering your questions. And I’d like you to include a sketch of your of the types of graphs you’ll be getting. So go back up… well, look at the picture. Look at the paragraph. We want to consider the environment, not necessarily dolphins, but the environment.

CORY

     How depth affects light intensity.

JUSTIN

     Yeah, that definitely…

CORY

     That’s a big one.  I don’t know how.

TEACHER       

     Write down your hypotheses, questions.

CORY 

     Well, the deeper we go…

JILLENE         

     The darker it gets.

CORY 

     The more light [inaudible]…

JUSTIN

     Can we predict the amount of light at a given depth of water?

CORY

     Yeah. That’s going to be hard, though.

JILLENE

     It depends upon if water…

CORY

     I guess you’d have to have a standard.

JUSTIN

     What?

JILLENE

     I was going to say you’d have to have a certain type of water.