Human Body Unit - Week 15 - The Eye

Week 15: We needle felted eyeballs.

Did you know our eyeballs are roughly the size of golf balls? Most of the eye is a fluid filled chamber. At the front are the cornea, pupil, iris and lens which work together to focus images of what we see onto the retina at the back of the eye.

Our eyes are very similar to cameras and binoculars. Both can be focused to create clear images and adjusted to let in just the right amount of light. By modifying the focal length on the camera lens the aperture changes in corresponding size, just like the pupil changes size in high and low light.

Lenses work by bending light. The shape and thickness of the lens determines how the light is refracted. In our eyes four muscles are attached to the lens. By tightening and relaxing the lens of the eye changes shape which focuses the image onto the retina. To understand the differences between convex and concave lenses and how different shapes refract light we visited My Science Site.

To gain an even better understanding of eye anatomy, lenses and how the eye works we turned to youtube. After watching a few random eye anatomy videos we watched these two Bill Nye the Science Guy videos on how the eye works and how lenses work.

Then the kids began needle felting their own eyeballs. They began by creating a fiber ball.

The balls were partially covered with yellow fiber to represent the retina.

Pink fiber covered the retina to represent the choroid.

 The choroid was covered with white fiber for the sclera.

Then an optic nerve was added to bring the image to the brain and four muscles were added to contract the lens. Finally a lens, pupil, and iris were added to the front.

Look how different they turned out. Some aren't even connected to the brain.

The rest of our Human Body science projects can be found on our Science Page.

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