Rotation.org Writing Team

EMMAUS

SCIENCE WORKSHOP

PASSAGE

Story: Luke 24:13-35
Key/Memory Verse: Luke 24:30-31

PURPOSE

See Bible Background.

Objective(s) for Rotation

See Bible Background.

Objectives for the Science Workshop

Through demonstration and hands-on exercises, children will explore the concept of how we view objects around us. Students will discuss “seeing” or recognizing Jesus. What can make it difficult to recognize Jesus in our midst?

PREPARATION

Read Bible Background.

Materials List

• Bibles
  
• Instructions for each of the experiment stations to be used
  
• Paper, 8 1/2 x 11
  
• Pencils
  
• U.S. dollar coin (Sacagawea)
  
• U.S. penny
  
• Worksheet for science experiments (one per student)
  
• Word processor, printer, and the Internet
  

Also

Gather items for the experiment stations you intend to use. (Note: Try to have enough of each material at a station so that all students can be doing an experiment at a station at the same time – in other words, no one is standing around waiting.)

Station 1: “Draw a Mirror Image”

• Markers, two colors
  
• Mirror, small
  
• Paper
  

Station 2: “Magic Eye”

• Examples of “Magic Eye” Puzzles (Check out your public library.)
  

Station 3: “Visual puzzles”

• Use the Internet to access examples of visual puzzles or illusions (see Resources). Hint - Don’t use too many puzzles or kids won’t be ready to move to next station. If a puzzle has an “answer”, include the answer but have it covered up.
  

Station 4: “Blind Spot”

• Index cards, 3" x 5"
  
• Markers
  
• On each card, draw a dot on one end (about 2 cm in) and draw a cross on the other end. On another card draw a line across the entire card through the center of the dot and the cross.
  

Station 5: “Color Wheel”

• Markers
  
• Toy tops - look for them at the party store in a package. They are sold as party favors. These will work great.
  
• Paper
  
• Pencil
  
• Scissors
  
• Tape (may not be needed)
  
• Trace circles on paper using the top as a template. Cut out. Color circles in a variety of ways – example a circle that is half yellow and half red or a circle that is half yellow and half blue. (Try other combinations). Poke a hole in the paper so that it fits on the top of the top. Tape it down with a loop of tape if necessary.
  

Station 6: “Dot Pictures”

• Use the Internet to print out a “dot picture” (see Resources) or create your own. Attach it to a clipboard.
  

Advance Preparation Requirements

• Determine the experiment stations you intend to use. You may choose to do fewer stations if time is limited or the size of your class is small.
  
  
• Print instructions for each station to be used (see below). Using a word processor, create a customized worksheet for the stations selected (see below). Leave space on the sheet for students to write their answers. The worksheet isn’t required but keeps the kids focused on the lesson. Print one worksheet copy per student.
  
  
• In the center of a sheet of copy paper, trace around a penny. Carefully cut an exact penny-sized opening. Practice how to pass the dollar coin through the penny-sized hole.
  
  
• Set up the experiment stations with supplies and instructions.
  

Station 1: Draw a Mirror

• Printed Instructions for Experiment Station: (1) Draw a curvy line on a piece of paper. (2) Using a different colored marker, see if you can trace over your line but don’t look at the line you drew! Instead, look at a reflection of the line in a mirror. (No peeking at what you actually drew on the paper!)
  
  
• Worksheet Words: (1) Was this hard or easy to do? (2) Why do you think so? (3) If you practiced at this sort of exercise, would it get easier?
  

Station 2: “Magic Eye” puzzles.

• Printed Instructions for Experiment Station: Worksheet Words: (1) Hold a picture so the center of the picture almost touches your nose. (2) Look at the picture without focusing on any one part. Slowly move the picture away from your face. Keep your eyes relaxed and unfocused!
  
  
• Worksheet Words: (1) What does the picture look like when you look at it in a normal way? (2) What did you see when you followed the instructions? (3) If you try looking at the same picture again does it get easier to see the “surprise”?
  

Station 3: “Visual Puzzles”

• Printed Instructions for Experiment Station: See if you can solve the puzzles shown.
  
  
• Worksheet Words: (1) Was each puzzle hard, or easy to do? (2) If the puzzle had an “answer”, when you saw the answer did the puzzle then seem really easy? (3) What surprising thing did you learn?
  

Station 4: “Your Blind Spot”

• Printed Instructions for Experiment Station: Start with the card with just a cross and a dot. With the cross on the right, hold the card so it is an arm’s length away. Close your right eye. Look at the cross with your left eye. Focusing on the cross, slowly move the card towards your face. Keep focusing on the cross but notice what happens to the dot.
  
  
• Worksheet Words: (1) What happened to the dot as you moved the card in closer? (2) Does the same result occur if you close your left eye and focus your right eye on the dot? (3) If you try this experiment using the card with a line across it, what do you notice?
  
  Station 5: “Color Wheel” [list]
  
• Printed Instructions for Experiment Station: Predict what you’ll see before you spin each top.
  
  
• Worksheet Words: (1) What colors did you observe? (2) What color would you expect to see when spinning a black and white disk? (3) What about a multi-color disk?
  

Station 6: “Dot Pictures”

• Printed Instructions for Experiment Station: Look at the picture – first close up, then from across the room.
  
  
• Worksheet Words: (1) When looking close up, can you tell what the picture is? (2) What about from far away? (3) Your brain is always (well, mostly always) trying to make sense of what you see. What do you think your brain is doing in this case?
  
  

PRESENTATION

Open – Introduction

Greet your students warmly. Introduce yourself and any other adults. Open with prayer.
A suggestion: “Dear God, We are thankful that long ago you sent your son Jesus to teach people about your love. Help us today to recognize the love that Jesus offers for each of us. Amen."

Say: We are learning a Bible story about two people who were walking to the town of Emmaus on the very first Easter evening. Along the way an amazing thing happened – they met the risen Christ! (In latter weeks of the Rotation, ask what amazing thing happened.) Let’s read about this amazing event. Distribute Bibles. Have everyone find Luke, chapter 24, verse 13.

Ask: What are the first four books of the New Testament? What are these four books collectively called? (The Gospels)

Say: The Gospels include the good news that Jesus is alive! Two of Jesus’ followers, Cleopas and his unnamed friend, discovered this truth on the road to Emmaus.

Read the Scripture together, verses 13-35.

Dig - Main Content

Ask: Did the two travelers recognize Christ when they first saw him? (No)

Why do you suppose they didn’t recognize Jesus? (Accept all answers)

Have you ever heard the expression “I’ll believe it when I see it”? Can actually seeing something help you to “believe” it? What are some things you’d have to see to believe? (Allow a few answers)

Say: I have a piece of paper here with a hole in the middle. (Show the prepared paper.) This hole is exactly the size of a penny. (Show the penny in relation to the hole in the paper). Ask: Do you think I can fit this dollar coin through this penny-sized hole, without ripping the paper? (Hold the dollar coin up to the penny-sized hole.) Say: Maybe you have to see it to believe it. Demonstrate that it is possible! [Ask an assistant to hold the dollar coin for a moment. Fold the paper so that the folded edge goes through the center of the hole. With two hands, hold the top outer corners of the paper so the hole (and fold) are at the bottom edge. Push the corners inward. Ask your assistant to drop the coin into the paper. The coin will easily fall through the hole. Note that explaining why this can happen (because you’ve distorted the hole) isn’t important.

Say: This was a case where seeing helped you believe something – that I could fit a large coin through a small hole. But what about our two travelers – they saw Jesus but they didn’t recognize him at first. So seeing wasn’t enough to help them. They needed to not only see, but also recognize – to realize who was in their presence – it was the risen Christ!

Say: At this time we’re going to be doing some projects about our eyes, our ability to see, and how we view objects around us. Provide instructions for the activities and the process that will be used to explore them.

Break into groups of 2 or 3. Hand out pencils and worksheets to each student. Have groups spend a few minutes at each station and rotate to the next station on your signal. For older students (readers) the stations will be self-explanatory. Non-readers will need more help. Stop the experiment phase with enough time for discussion.

Stations include:

Station 1: Draw a Mirror Image

Station 2: “Magic Eye” puzzles.

Station 3: “Visual Puzzles”

Station 4: “Your Blind Spot”

Station 5: “Color Wheel”

Station 6: “Dot Pictures”

Reflect - Closure

Briefly discuss what students discovered in their course through each station. Points you may wish to make –

Station 1: the mirror is showing you a backward image of your curvy line. It was hard to trace your line because your brain is not used to telling your hand what to do in reverse.

Station 2: this 3-D picture process works because of what’s called “binocular disparity” – our eyes each see a slightly different perspective. This affects the way our brain interprets depth.

Station 3: (your comments will vary based on the puzzles chosen).

Station 4: We all have a blind spot – a place on your retina that does not have any receptors to light. You noticed your blind spot when the dot or the cross disappeared from view. In the experiment with the line across the card, there wasn’t any break in the line where your blind spot would be. This is because your brain “fills in” the blind spot by using surrounding information – the line.

Station 5: When you spun each top your eyes combined the colors – thus a red and yellow disk will appear orange when spun, a rainbow colored disk will appear white, and a black and white disk can elicit other colors. (No one is quite sure why this happens).

Station 6: Your brain tries to interpret what your eyes are seeing. Your eyes see a bunch of dots but the brain says – but what is that? To help decide, your brain is also using past knowledge.

Say: Based on what we’ve learned about how we see and recognize objects, what about the two travelers on the road to Emmaus?

Ask: Why was it so hard for these followers of Jesus to recognize him? (Accept all answers - distraction, grief, worry, fear.) Jesus asks that all of us be his followers – acting as his eyes and hands on earth today. When have you seen Jesus at work in your life? What can make it difficult to recognize Jesus? (Accept all answers.)

Say: The two travelers finally came to recognize Jesus – then what did they realize in discussing the encounter? (How their hearts burned when Jesus explained the Bible to them)

Ask: So if we work at it, if we train our eye, and our mind (because remember your eyes work with your brain) can we get better at “seeing” Jesus? How can we practice “seeing” Jesus this week?

Repeat the memory verse.

Say: May your eyes be opened to God’s presence in your life this week.

ADDITIONAL SUGGESTIONS

Adaptations - Younger Children

Use a story Bible (showing any pictures as you read) or paraphrase the story.
Forego the use of a worksheet for non-readers.
Have an adult for each group of students to help them at each station.
Reduce the number of stations.

Adaptations - Older Children

Choose the stations that you think will be more challenging to your older students.
Give students supplies to create their own color wheel combinations.

SOURCES

For group demonstration-coin “trick”
Rice, George F. “Dr. George’s Science Web.” http://www.drgeorge.org/index.php?area=adult&page=lesson&lesson=0011
Same trick is also visually shown at http://www.puzzles.com/PuzzlePlayground/ImpossibleHole/ImpossibleHoleSec.htm

For Station 1
Nye, Bill. “Home Demos: Mirror, Mirror.” http://www.nyelabs.com/billnye.html

For Station 2
How to view a Magic Eye puzzle: http://www.magiceye.com/faq_example.htm (Instructions and picture at this site may help younger students to view these pictures)
“Magic Eye Image of the Week” http://www.magiceye.com/3dfun/stwkdisp.shtml
Van Wagner Childs, Anne. God's Miracle Eye: Best-loved Bible Stories in 3-D. Little Rock, AK: Leisure Arts, 1995. (ISBN 1-57486-000-3)

For Station 3
http://www.puzzles.com/PuzzlePlayground/Visual.htm
http://www.puzzles.com/PuzzlePlayground/IllusionsHome.htm
Rice, George F. “Dr. George’s Science Web: Puzzle Power.” http://www.drgeorge.org/index.php?area=adult&page=lesson&lesson=0006
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/words.html#seffect (color word test)

For Station 4
http://www.exploratorium.edu/snacks/blind_spot.html

For Station 5
http://www.mos.org/learn_more/ed_res/cheapbook/colorcircles/index.html

For Station 6
http://www.exploratorium.edu/snacks/jacques_cousteau_graph.html (dot picture)
http://www.exploratorium.edu/snacks/jacques_cousteau.html

Other choices: Doherty, Paul and Rathjen, Don. The Cheshire Cat and Other Eye-Popping Experiments on How We See the World. New York: Wiley & Sons, 1995. (ISBN 0-471-11516-9)

CONTRIBUTOR: Carol Hulbert

--
Author modified portion of lesson with tops. The way it was originally written (to use metal juice can lids as tops) didn't work.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: CreativeCarol,

This is a wonderful lesson Carol. I have found another web link that is wonderful.

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/chvision.html

It has several pages of eye experiments, including many of those you listed.

It prints out in clor and you can cut up the pages and use them for stations, very quick and easy.

SheilaB

I've created a PDF document that features the famous "Jesus in the Snow" photograph.
I've shared this photo many times with children and youth.
(This is merely an icon, click below for the real document)

Listen to them as they try to find it, and try to help each other see it. Then as everyone finally sees it, debrief all the discussion and "helps" you heard along the lines of "how we help each other to see Jesus," and "why some people see it sooner than others," and "once you see Jesus, you can't go back to not seeing him in the photo." Lots of great discussion! ...and they'll want to share the photo printout with their family and friends too.
Jesus in the Snow PDF document

<>< Neil MacQueen
Writing Team Member

Pre School
Color Cards

I have taken this idea for color cards from http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/chvision.html

My variation is get two “sets” and have students play memory match game.

Bill Nye's "Mirror, Mirror" demo is no longer available on that website, apparently.

(Carol, you write the best science lessons! I am always excited when I find one!)

For station 6 here are fresh links:

http://www.exploratorium.edu/s..._cousteau/index.html
http://www.exploratorium.edu/s..._cousteau_graph.html

Fresh link for station 4:

http://www.exploratorium.edu/s...lind_spot/index.html

For another "optical illusion" type activity, do a Google image search for "gestalt".