Unit Title: How Cameras Create Images
Grade Level: 7-8
Subject/Topic Area: Photography; Optics; Electronics; Chemistry
Key Words: Lens; Pixel; Image; CCD; Film; Color
Designed By: Dan Krill
Time Frame: 2 weeks
School District: Fishers School System
School: Fishers Middle School


Links to Content Standards:



Brief Summary of Unit (including curricular context and unit goals):
Students will experience backward engineering of cameras to determine the components used to create images. They will also discuss the different ways that images can be recorded and saved. A simple experiment will be built to manipulate light and create various images.




Identify Desired Results
Established Goals:
Students will be able to predict how light travels through various optical systems, and explain how an optical system can be used to create recordable images. They will be able to use lab equipment to demonstrate the physical principle involved and collect data to corroborate or refute it. -NYS MST Standard 1: Scientific Inquiry



What Understandings are Desired?
Students will understand that...
  • Light is modified when it travels through different media
  • Many forms of information can be recorded as images



What Essential Questions will be Considered?
  • How do optics modify and manipulate light?

  • How are images recorded and stored?



What key knowledge and skills will students acquire as a result of this unit?
Students will know...

  • What an “image” is and how it is created


Students will be able to...

  • set up an experiment with optics
  • record information on different media