Summer SAVY, Session 4 Day 3, “The Science of Senses” (3rd-4th)
Hello families! Today was SIGHT DAY in our Science of the Senses course! To begin our day, students engaged in a “turning our brains on” introduction activity, which involved exploring the Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition images (https://www.nikonsmallworld.com/). It’s worth checking out if you’re interested! The students viewed an image of Slime Mold (which is actually quite beautiful when seen up close). We explored the images from the 2024 competition winners. Students all agreed that the microscopic images look more like glass and abstract art than, let’s say, the cross section of a mouse eyeball, for example! It’s a great site to explore.
We then had a quick overview of the components of the eye, the location of the occipital lobe, and how the brain helps us “see” and process information to react to what we are seeing. The students asked me to put the following question and answer from part of a video we viewed on the occipital lobe into the blog: “How many fingers am I holding up? -AVOCADO!“. If you say this to them, they will laugh out loud. This discussion somehow briefly veered into a discussion about microscopes, telescopes, and Galileo . . . which forced me to take a quick detour into a 5-minute Western History from the Roman Empire to the Renaissance lesson! This teaching adventure was necessary when the kids started discussing that Galileo was under house arrest. You never know where their curiosity will lead!
We got back on track, however, and set ourselves on an Optical Illusion course where we explored the 1st of 3 types of Optical Illusions. We viewed several types of “literal illusions,” and the students had to identify what these images had in common. Each group had a stack of optical illusion cards, and they had to sort out the cards that were similar to what they had just viewed. The students were then told the name of this type of illusion and had to write their own definitions. In short, literal illusions are those where the image may be two or more distinct images at once. For example, the bunny/duck illusion. We looked at a few paintings of surrealists like René Magritte, who often employs this illusion in their art.
From here, we moved to “physiological illusions” – the type of illusion where the brain is overwhelmed, making it appear as though the image is moving or shifting. After lunch, we created art pieces in this style. It’s always good to do something hands-on after lunch! We then briefly discussed “cognitive illusions” and worked on a few examples. These illusions make us question what we are seeing (Which line is longer? Which circle is bigger?), which makes an excellent bridge to a brief discussion of AI and the implications of AI in photos and images.
I showed the students an image of the streets of Paris, France, covered in garbage. It’s a relatively infamous AI photo, and entirely believable if you didn’t know better. The debate was interesting, with most of the class unable to believe that it was an AI fake. Over the years, as a teacher, I’ve become more and more convinced of the importance of teaching Visual Literacy, simply due to the volume of images we see daily. One of the skills students must learn is to “slow down their thinking” and not jump to conclusions. This is a learned skill, and important in most professions.
To close out the day, we watched a PBS video about how animals see, and the students generated questions and identified an animal’s eyesight they’d like to know more about. I’d love to have them come back tomorrow with information about their animals’ eyesight!
We had another fast-moving day!