Mississippi Science P.4.6B.4
The Standard
- P.4.6B
- Students will demonstrate an understanding of the properties of light as forms of energy.
Plan and conduct scientific investigations to explain how light behaves when it strikes transparent, translucent, and opaque materials.
2026 Mississippi College- and Career-Readiness Standards for Science · Motion, Forces, and Energy
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students plan a fair flashlight test by deciding what to change and what to keep the same. They test clear plastic, wax paper, and cardboard, then explain whether light passes through, scatters, or is blocked.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student keeps the flashlight and screen in place while swapping materials. They use their observations to explain why they can see clearly through plastic, see a blurry shape through wax paper, and cannot see through cardboard.
Common Misconceptions
- Some students think wax paper blocks all light because they cannot see clearly through it. Others think cardboard makes light disappear. Students may also change the flashlight distance between tests and mistake the brightness change for an effect of the material.
How to Assess It
- Give pairs a flashlight, white paper, clear plastic, wax paper, and cardboard. Ask them to hold each sample in the same spot, record what happens to the light on the paper, and explain why two results differ.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Have pairs keep a flashlight fixed while testing clear plastic, wax paper, and cardboard over white paper; record brightness and shadow shapes.
Ask students to explain why a pencil looks sharp through clear plastic but blurry through wax paper, using their flashlight notes.
Give groups cards showing a clear window, frosted window, and closed wooden door; sort by light passage and justify each placement.
Tape wax paper and cardboard over separate classroom windowpanes; compare them with bare glass for daylight and the view outside.
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Printable P.4.6B.4 Worksheet
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Related Standards
- P.4.6B.3
Develop and use models to communicate how light travels and behaves when it strikes an object, including reflection, refraction, and absorption.
- P.4.6B.2
Obtain and communicate information to explain how the visibility of an object is related to light.
- P.8.6.3
Conduct simple investigations about the performance of waves to describe their behavior (e.g., refraction, reflection, transmission, and absorption) as they int...
- P.8.6.6
Obtain and evaluate scientific information to explain the relationship between seeing color and the transmission, absorption, or reflection of light waves by va...
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