This inquiry activity will be used before discussing curved mirrors in class. Students will discover how curved mirrors act and how the size and the orientation of the image are related to the distance from the mirror. Ray diagrams for curved mirrors are more complicated than ray diagrams for lenses, so this lab is not an attempt to get students to draw ray diagrams. The lab uses the term focal point loosely. Parabolic mirrors have true focal points; spoons do not. The lack of a true focal point is demonstrated by the distortions in the spoon reflections. However, the terminology is convenient for our purposes, as the spoons have a focal point-like area.
Details
Type Book ChapterPub Date 5/30/2009Stock # PB240X_45