Lesson
The Shadow That Moved
Toby set a stick in the yard. By lunch, the shadow had gone somewhere else.
Lesson
Toby set a stick in the yard. By lunch, the shadow had gone somewhere else.
Toby is the kind of kid who notices.
At breakfast he pushed a stick into the dirt by the garden. A long dark shadow stretched out behind it. He set a stone at the tip.
At lunch he went back. The stone was still there. The shadow was not.
It was shorter. And it pointed somewhere new.
Flicker was no help. Flicker was busy chasing the shadow of his own tail.
Flicker, the shadow chaser
Poppy, the tryerPoppy does not wonder for long. She tries.
You can try it too. All you need is a sunny day, a stick or a block, and chalk.
No sun today? Use a flashlight in a dim room. Hold it low, then high, and watch the shadow of a cup on the table.
Poppy did her first test in a hurry.
After the first hour, she nudged the stick a little. Just to make it stand straighter. Then she traced the new shadow.
The chalk lines did not line up. One shadow looked short. The next looked wide. Nothing made sense.
She laughed. Then she tried again, and this time she left it alone.
That is the oops. If you change two things, you cannot tell which one did it. A good test changes one thing only. Here, that one thing is time.
Here is what the Fenns worked out.
Light travels in straight lines. The stick gets in the way. The light cannot bend around it. So the ground behind the stick stays dark.
That dark patch is the shadow. It is not a thing. It is the place where light cannot reach.
Now the Sun. It does not really move across the sky. We do. The Earth spins, and it carries us along. So the Sun seems to climb, then slide down the other side.
When the Sun is low, the light comes in sideways. The shadow stretches long. When the Sun is high, the light comes from above. The shadow shrinks short.
And the shadow always points away from the Sun.
Grandpa FennShadows point away from the light.
Low light makes long shadows. High light makes short ones.
The Earth turns. The shadow follows.
Big word for the day. Rotation. It means spinning around.
Grab the Sun and drag it across the sky. Or slide the bar underneath. Watch what happens to the shadows.
All three. Grandpa would be proud. Now go outside and find the real thing.
Next time you are outside, look down. What is your shadow doing?
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