Do you think we can live without the light?! Let’s discover five lively light facts for kids.
The world is full of things that are all different colours but how do we see all these colours? When light shines the light looks white but it is really made up of a lot of colours. When visible light hits objects they absorb some of the colours and reflect other colours. Our eyes see the colour that reflects off the object so it looks that colour. The best way to see all the colours that are contained in white light is to look at a rainbow. Rainbows happen when white light refracts inside large raindrops. When the light goes through the raindrops it spreads out to show all the colours inside.
The sun is very far away but the light from the sun reaches Earth in around 8 minutes, that is because light travels so quickly. Light from a solid source travels around186,000 miles per second. This means that a beam of light could go all the way around the world 7 and a half times in one second. That’s super fast!
The light produced by living things is called bioluminescence, it happens because of a chemical reaction inside of the plant or animal. Most of the animals that create bioluminescent light live in the ocean. Jellyfish use the light they make to scare away predators. There is a kind of plankton that is called Glow Plankton that also creates bioluminescent light. They can be seen in large numbers in the ocean and by the coast, they make the waves look like they are glowing.
Not all bioluminescent animals live in the ocean, fireflies also glow with bioluminescent light.
Humans can see lots of colours because of visible light but there are other light waves we cannot see. These include radio waves, infrared, and ultraviolet. Ultraviolet light can be seen by many types of animals which helps them survive in the wild. Birds and bees are two examples of animals that can see ultraviolet light. This helps them find flowers and plants in the wild which helps them in their role as pollinators. Flowers may look plain to us but to animals that can see ultraviolet light they are very vibrant, some even have interesting patterns.
Plants don’t eat food the way we do but they do consume a type of food called glucose, a natural sugar. They create this glucose from water, carbon dioxide, oxygen, and sunlight through a process called photosynthesis. When light hits from the sun hits the leaves of plants and trees it is absorbed so that the plant can create glucose. This glucose is a type of energy that helps the plant live and grow.
We hope you enjoyed learning more things about light as much as we loved teaching you about it. Now that you know how majestic the light is, you can move on to learn more about STEM like: Forces, Gravity and Friction.
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