NEW AQA Physics (2016) - Reflection of light

This lesson is designed for the NEW AQA Physics GCSE, particularly the ‘Light’ SoW.

For more lessons designed to meet specification points for the NEW AQA Trilogy specifications for Biology, Chemistry and Physics please see my shop: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resources/shop/SWiftScience

The lesson begins with a slide showing some images of different types of mirrors, and a description of a plane mirror being one that is completely flat. The next slide reintroduces students to the law of reflection, it shows a diagram of an incident ray hitting a plane mirrow, and the reflected ray bouncing off. Students should already know that the angle of incidence = angle of reflection.

The following slide shows students a ray diagram of how an image is formed using a plane mirror. Students will then conduct their own investigation, where they will draw their own ray diagrams to show a virtual image is created using a mirror. The activity after this is a set of statements which students will need to rearrange into a flow diagram in their books, to correctly describe how an image is produced in a plane mirror. This task can be self-assessed once complete. Then, students will complete an activity where they will match up the statements to the correct definition, this too can be marked using the answers provided.

The next practical activity requires students to make their own periscopes, once they have done this they can answer a couple of questions about the direction of light travelling through a periscope.

The last part of the lesson focuses on specular and diffuse reflections. The students will be shown diagrams to represent each of these types of reflection, and provided with a description of each. Students could sketch their own diagrams to represent both types of reflection.

The final activity is a summary worksheet on the topic of reflection, students will answer these questions in their books and can either self-assess or peer-assess using the mark scheme provided.

The plenary task requires students to come up with three quiz questions to assess their peers understanding of the content of the lesson.

All resources are included. Thanks for looking, if you have any questions please let me know at swyftresources@gmail.com.