Indoor shadow cartographer
20 minutes · Low-power flashlight · An upright toy · Paper · Pencil · Ruler
Your investigation
- Place a toy on paper indoors. Ask an adult to help keep a flashlight steady and pointed away from eyes.
- Mark three lamp positions at the same distance from the toy but at low, medium, and high angles.
- Trace and measure the toy’s shadow at each position. Keep the toy and paper still.
- Draw a simple table of lamp angle and shadow length, then predict a fourth result.
Think, draw, explain
Which lamp position made the longest shadow?
Why keep the toy and distance the same?
Grown-up guide & possible answers
- A lower light angle usually creates a longer shadow on a flat surface. A higher angle generally produces a shorter one.
- Keeping other variables similar makes the angle comparison fairer. A tabletop model explores geometry, not the full Sun–Earth system.