Learning How Eyes Work Using Simple Media

“Students, what will happen if you are suddenly woken up in a room with bright light?” The question was posed by Toni Joko Firmanto, S.Pd, at the start of his science lesson. The students responded with several different answers. Shocked, startled, blinded by the light were some of the answers from the students.

The question was related to the theme of the lesson on that day about ‘eyes’. The objective of the lesson was for students to identify parts of the eyes through which light passes, to determine how images are formed in the eye, to identify the chemical substances in eye-drops and to know the function and side effects of those substances.

What made the lesson interesting was that the teacher used simple learning media which he developed himself with help from his students. The media consisted of a plastic ball with holes in it. The ball itself acted as the eyeball. Pak Toni and his students then stuck paper on to the ball and painted the paper to make it like an eye.

For the cornea they used a plastic bottle. They cut it and put it inside the ball. For corneal liquid they used a plastic bag filled with water. The plastic bag was then inserted in the plastic bottle and tied with a rubber band.

For the next step, the students put a candle in front of the bottle and lit it. They observed the light which came through the eyeball. They moved the candle to get the brightest light from the candle. To see effect of differences in light intensity, they used three different sizes of hole: small, medium and large.

In this way the students observed the characteristics of the image formed in the eye. Through this activity, students understood the lesson easily. They were also enthusiastic when presenting their findings after the experiment. This kind of learning activity needs to take place more often.

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