This month's lesson and activity provide students with the opportunity to explore light phenomenon including polarized light, prisms, and lenses. Specifically, The Energy of Light lesson and associated Stations of Light activity provide students with the opportunity to explore light phenomenon. Engineers apply their knowledge of the properties of light and light energy to the creation of many useful products and tools. Engineers also use their knowledge of light energy, lenses and prisms as they design eye glasses, binoculars, cameras, medical equipment, satellites, optics and lasers. By understanding polarized light, engineers have created laser applications, electron microscope imaging and medical imaging techniques, in addition to sunglasses and camera filters that reduce the glare from the sun.

This lesson is designed for grades 3 through 5, but an important part of many documents in the TeachEngineering Digital Library is the activity extensions heading near the bottom of the activity, providing teachers with ways to make the activity harder or easier for different grade levels. In this case, optics equations could be introduced and quantitative measurements could be required to make the assignment more challenging for high school students. An online physics applet also from the Engineering Pathway created by Davidson College provides students the opportunity to explore optics quantitatively through a web-based activity.

This lesson is brought to you by the new Engineering Pathway, a part of the National Science Digital Library. The Engineering Pathway Portal to the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) launched last month. The portal provides high-quality teaching and learning resources in applied science and math, engineering, computer science/information technology and engineering technology - for use by K-12 and university educators. The Engineering Pathway brings together quality engineering education materials from all over the internet allowing teachers to search all of these documents in a single location. The lesson and activity are from the TeachEngineering Digital Library for K-12 engineering curricula.