How Does Our Sense of Sight Work?

We've been exploring our sense of sight in more depth the past few days, and several experiences have helped us think about how our sense of sight works, and how important it is in our lives.

We began by looking at a set of objects for roughly three seconds. We then had to try and identify all the objects that were seen in that time.

We realized upon naming and then revisiting the objects that none of us remembered seeing the small blue thumb tack. Was it that we truly did not see it, or had we simply failed to pay attention to it? Amirah quickly hypothesized that the reason we did not remember seeing it was because it was so small. This made us think about all the things we may be missing due to their small size! We also realized that brighter objects attracted our attention more quickly.

We later used our sense of sight to explore colors through an experiment called the "Exploding Rainbow". This experiment got us thinking about how we only use our sense of sight when exploring colors.

 

Another activity that caused us to both use and think about our sense of sight was a photo hunt. We worked in partners with a set of pictures. Each photo was taken somewhere near the playground. Our job was to find the exact location each photo was taken.

Upon discussion after our hunt, we came to the conclusion that some pictures were more quickly recognizable because they were things we attend to and notice more regularly. Adrian was quick to point out that our brain played a large role in this exercise because we had to remember things we had seen before.

Finally, we worked with our fifth grade buddies to create our own "I Spy" books with the use of the app 'Book Creator'. This project not only focused on our sense of sight, but it also introduced us to the app we will be using this year to create our growth portfolios. We can't wait to share our books with you!