Lesson Plan: Drawing Ray Diagrams for Convex Lenses Science • Third Year of Preparatory School
This lesson plan includes the objectives, prerequisites, and exclusions of the lesson teaching students how to draw diagrams of light rays interacting with convex lenses.
Objectives
Students will be able to
- recognize that parallel incident rays are converged to a point by a convex lens,
- recall that the point that parallel incident rays are converged to by a convex lens is known as the focal point,
- draw ray diagrams to determine the position of an image formed by a convex lens,
- identify from ray diagrams of convex lenses whether the image of an object is real or virtual,
- identify from ray diagrams of convex lenses whether the image of an object is magnified or reduced in size,
- identify from ray diagrams of convex lenses whether the image of an object is inverted or upright.
Prerequisites
Students should already be familiar with
- the idea that light travels in straight lines,
- what convex lenses are,
- the optical axis of a convex lens,
- the focal points of a convex lens.
Exclusions
Students will not cover
- monoconvex lenses,
- concave lenses,
- mirrors,
- Snell’s law,
- refractive index,
- total internal reflection,
- wavefronts,
- the Huygens wavefront model,
- the lensmaker’s equation,
- aberration.
