Student Exploration: Laser Reflection

Directions: Follow the instructions to go through the simulation. Respond to the questions and

prompts in the orange boxes.

Vocabulary: angle of incidence, angle of reflection, laser, law of reflection, plane mirror, reflection

Prior Knowledge Questions (Do these BEFORE using the Gizmo.)

Imagine you shine a flashlight directly at a mirror, as shown below.

1. Click the image, click Edit ✏️Draw an

arrow showing the direction you think

the beam of light will most likely reflect

off the mirror.

2. Click the image, click Edit ✏️Suppose

you tilt the mirror. Draw an arrow

showing the direction the beam will most

likely reflect off the mirror now.

Gizmo Warm-up

Flashlights produce wide beams of light that have

various wavelengths. A laser, on the other hand, is a

narrow beam of light with only one wavelength. All the

waves in a laser beam are parallel to one another. As a

result, lasers are ideal for studying reflection, or how

waves bounce off a surface.

Using the Laser Reflection Gizmo, you can adjust the

position of a laser beam and mirror to study how light

behaves when it is reflected.

1. Drag the Angle slider back and forth. Describe what happens to the reflected laser beam:

When I dragged the angle slider back and forth, the reflected laser beam also moved across

the grid along with the slider. When I dragged the angle slider back and forth, the degree of

the reflected laser beam changed, therefore causing the direction of the beam to also change.

2. Drag the laser up and down. Describe what happens to the reflected laser beam:

When I dragged the laser up and down, the reflected laser beam also moved up and down on

the grid along with the laser. When I dragged the laser up and down, the location of the laser

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changed, which therefore caused the location of the reflected laser be