Technologies often have drawbacks as well as benefits. When harm occurs or seems likely, choices have to be made or new solutions found. Because of their ability to invent tools and processes, people have an enormous effect on the lives of other living things. Students explore mirrors to see things that they don't normally see. They investigate mirror images, including reversals and lines of symmetry in geometric shapes and letters of the alphabet.
Students explore how to reflect images from one mirror to another.
Groups then use their understandings about reflection to assemble a periscope. Finally, students discover how mirrors can be arranged to create multiple images. As a result, they invent kaleidoscopes and other mirror devices that have both practical and esthetic purposes. The proficiencies on this page were developed by the Indiana Department of Education from the Benchmarks for Science Literacy .