Perspectives: Shadows

Can Shadows Change Size?

Week of September 22^nd, 2013

Last week the children were interested in the shadows that appeared when they placed different plastic animals onto a projector. They were excited about how the projector would make the animals’ shadow huge. I decided to explore different techniques that we could do to change the size of the shadow.

Our first technique was to slide the projector closer and farther from the screen in order to see the shadows grow smaller and then bigger again. We traced the original shadow so that we could visually see the change in size. They were very enthusiastic about tracing the shadow and would even try and trace their own.

Our second technique was to hold hands and walk up to the screen to see our own shadow, and then slowly walk backwards to see it grow. The children were fascinated at seeing their own shadow and would repeatedly walk closer and farther from the screen in order to see their shadow change from a small shadow to a huge shadow.

I would like to see how they can explore the concept of size even further by introducing another technique that they can use to discover shadow sizes.  Why is the shadow so much larger than the original object when placed onto the projector?