Learning about eyes

April 21st 2015

Girls in Year 6 have been learning about the topic of “Light” in Science this year and as part of this they have been studying eyes and how we see. To enrich what the girls have been learning in class, we were delighted to welcome Optician, Mrs Biehler, to school to talk to the girls in detail about her work. She explained to the girls about how we see, the science behind the eye and how we can correct sight problems with the help of lenses. She also went onto explain how we can look after our eyes by reducing the amount of time we look at computer screens. Computer screens release blue light, and this can lead to macular degeneration earlier in our lives.

Mrs Beihler showed the girls testing lenses, contact lenses and glasses to demonstrate the different eye problems people have. The group found this very interesting as many of them have not experienced these problems in real life. They were able to find out what it would be like to be partially blind and explore some the reasons why people wear glasses.

After the talk the girls were set a number of tasks to complete. These included seeing images through a pinhole camera, exploring how eyes can be deceived with optical images, working out which is the dominant eye, and experiencing how depth perception is harder with one eye.

Mrs Rodgers, Prep Science Teacher said “This was a fantastic talk from Mrs Beihler and the girls learnt a lot about the eye and how we see. It is always wonderful to welcome guest speakers and the opportunity to see Mrs Biehler’s specialist equipment has certainly contributed to the learning process.”