Light Pollution

DISCUSS

• Have you ever heard of light pollution?
• What do you think it is? 
• How is artificial lighting useful to you? 
• How do you use artificial lighting at home, at school and at work? 
• Imagine what it would be like if you couldn’t use artificial lighting for one day. How would it change your everyday activities?

EXPLORE

• What does earth look like at night?
• Brainstorm what you think the planet earth looks like at night from space.
• Use the internet and find images of earth at night.
• Look at these images taken by a NASA satellite https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/NPP/news/earth-at-night.html

Questions

1. What do you see?
2. What do these images tell you about our energy usage at night?
3. What surprised you about these images?
4. Look at Australia. Where is it bright at night?
5. Imagine if these photos were taken 100 years ago. Do you think they would look the same or different? Why?

RESEARCH

1. Make a list of questions you have about light pollution.
2. Use the internet to find answers to your questions.
3. For example; What is light pollution?
4. What problems does too much lighting cause?
5. Who or what is being affected by light pollution?
6. Can anything be done about it?

WRITE

Use your research findings, to write an information report about light pollution.

Share your research and opinions about light pollution on a class blog or wiki.

Suggested websites

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/32498843

https://www.assa.org.au/lightpollution

https://sites.google.com/site/skywalkdownunder/home/good-and-bad-lighting

http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/19-dark-sky-parks-where-heavens-steal-show.html

http://astronomynow.com/2015/04/11/international-dark-sky-week-2015/

ACTION

How can you take action against light pollution?

Brainstorm ways that you can help reduce light pollution at home and at school.

For example, you could turn lights off when you are not using them.

Adapted from Behind the News Episode 12, 12th May 2015

Costs of lighting in the home

Discuss

1. What types of lights do you have?
2. How much do you spend on lighting each year?
3. Do you know how to work it out?
4. Do you know which lights are the most energy efficient?

Think

1. Think about lights in your house.
2. What types of lighting do you have? And how many do you have? How many hours in a day are they used? Take a rough guess at how much your home lighting costs are per year. __$_____________

Fill in table

Type of lighting	Number in house	Hours used in a day
Compact fluorescent (20W)
Fluorescent tube (40W)
Halogen downlights (50W)
Incandescent (100W)
2 bulb light heater fan (650W)
Floodlight (150W) (outdoors)
Floodlight (300 W) (outdoors)
Other

What is a watt?

The W = watts

Relates to how much power is needed to use an electrical appliance at any time.

Therefor a 50 watt (W) globe uses 50 watts of power to operate.

1000 Watts (W) = 1kilowatt (kW)

2000 W = 2kW

We pay for electricity per kilowatt hour. (kWh)

If you look at your electricity bill it will show you how many kWh –kilowatt-hours you use.

Find out-Research

Use the internet to find out the costs of running lights.

1. Go to the government website Switch On

http://switchon.vic.gov.au/

2. Click on the “More ways to save” tab

3. Then click on “Appliance Calculator”

4. And then click on the  “Use appliance calculator” tab

5. Use the calculator to work out your lighting costs.

6. Search for the lighting image and press ‘Add’

7. Click on the dropdown menu and choose.

8. Then choose the number of hours.

9. The costs will appear next to each choice and as a total per year at the top.

For example;

Answer questions

Look at this example. 

• How many lights do they have in total?
• What is the most expensive type of lighting?
• How much does this household spend on lighting per day?
• How much do they spend per year?

Calculate your lighting costs. Compare with others in the class. Check your rough estimate and compare with this calculation.

For more activities about energy costs and electricity bills go to the Energyinfohub website and download the Energy-Did you know? Free teaching resource. 

There are also other information packs and translated consumer advice about gas and electricity.

Light Bulb Jokes

Do you like to tell or listen to jokes?

Have you heard any light bulb jokes?

Light bulb jokes are like ‘chicken that crossed the road’ jokes in that there are so many of variations.

Useful Words

Have you heard of the following words?

Punchline

Stereotype

Pun

A light bulb joke is a joke that asks how many people of a certain group are needed to change (replace or screw in) a light bulb. Generally, the punchline, answer highlights a stereotype of the target group.

Q: How many doctors does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: Three: One to find a bulb specialist, one to find a bulb installation specialist, and one to bill it all to Medicare.  

Q: How many consultants does it take to change a light bulb?

A: I'll have an estimate for you a week from Monday.

Q: How many mystery writers does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: Two: One to screw it almost all the way in and the other to give it a surprising twist at the end.

Q: How many politicians does it take to change a light bulb?

A:  Two. One to change it, and another one to change it back again.

OR A:  Four, one to change it and the other three to deny it.

1. What are these jokes saying about each of these professions?

Doctors …………………………………………………………………………………

Consultants …………………………………………………………………………………

Mystery writers …………………………………………………………………………………

Politicians …………………………………………………………………………………

2. Do you agree or disagree? Why?

3. Can you make your own light bulb joke about yourself?

i.e. How many students does it take to change a light bulb?

4. How many fathers does it take to change a light bulb?

Capturing Light

Take a photo that bests represents the word ‘light’.

Use your mobile phone, tablet or camera and take photos that make use of light. For example think about the following:

• Playing with Reflections
• Light and Dark
• Light In Nature
• Patterns In Shadows
• Experimental Overexposure
• Emerging From Shadows
• Celebrating Light in Nature
• Kids and Light
• Good Light
• Everyday Things In A Different Light
• Water and Light

This activity could be run as a class project and involve other classes. It could involve a Centre photography competition and or exhibition with prizes.

Students could create the rules of the competition, timelines, judging criteria, etc.

Things to think about.

• How many images can one person submit? 
• Are individual and group entrants allowed? 
• Are digital cameras and traditional cameras allowed? 
• Can photos be copied from the Internet? 
• What size should the image be? 
• Should the photos be mounted or not? 
• Are different formats allowed? i.e collage, book, poster? 
• Does there need to be a caption or not? And if yes, what information should the caption have on it? 
• When will the competition start and end? 
• Where will they submit entries? 
• Who will judge and how will they choose the best? 
• Will there be special categories? 
• What will the prizes be? Where will the exhibition take place?

To view photographs from an international competition 2015 SPIE International Year of Light Photo Contest

Other websites for inspiration and examples of light photography are

National Geographic – Simple beautiful photos: light

Google Search – ‘capturing light photos’

To learn more about light-based technologies and how they play a vital role in daily life, go to SPIE Education Outreach Resources.

Auroa Australis- The Southern Lights

Read

When I was young, I remember my Dad waking me up once at 2am in the morning to look at the night sky. I remember it was cold and dark but when I looked towards the south, the whole sky was a red haze. He told me it was the Auroa Australis or the Southern lights. What we could see was the lights above the Antartica. Despite being cold and tired it was amazing. I’ll never forget it.

This year the Auroa Australis shone in March and June the 24th. Did you see them? 
The closer people are to Antartica the more they can see, but still many Australians saw the lights even as far Central Australia.


Click on these links to see photos and videos

'Solar flare brings fiery night sky to much of southern Australia'

'Auroa Australis captured on social media'

Research

1. What causes the Southern lights to shine?
2. How often does this happen?
3. Does the Artic (North pole) also have lights? What are they called?

Descriptive writing

Look at the photos and watch you tube videos of the Auroa Australis. 
Prepare to write some descriptive writing. 
Imagine you are describing this to a person who has never seen an Auroa Australis.

1. What techniques can you use for descriptive writing?
2. Use you five senses and write what you hear and see. Imagine what you feel, smell and touch.
3. Language- use adjectives, simile or metaphor
4. Use different words to describe colour. i.e red = fuchsia, magenta, rose-coloured