Applying Standards Based Constructivism:
A Two-Step Guide for Motivating Students
The Pinhole Camera

Popular Name: The Pinhole Camera
Grade Level: 3rd Grade
Discipline: Science 
Standards and Performance Indicators Context
 
MST Standard 1

Students will use mathematical analysis, scientific inquiry, and engineering designs, as appropriate, to pose questions, seek answers, and develop solutions.
  • Ask “why” questions in attempts to seek greater understanding concerning objects and events they have observed and heard about.
  • Develop relationships among observations to construct descriptions of objects and events and to form their own tentative explanations of what they have observed.
MST Standard 4

Students understand and apply scientific concepts, principles, and theories pertaining to the physical setting and living environment and recognize the historical development of ideas in science.
  • Observe and describe using appropriate tools.
Core Curriculum Outline Connection
  • Manipulate materials through teacher direction and free discovery.
  • Use senses for making observations.
  • Observe, analyze, and report observations of objects and events.
  • Observe, identify, and communicate cause-and-effect relationships.
Learning Objectives (which will become the dimensions of the assessment’s rubric.)
Students will make observations, frame questions, and pose solutions based on their experience with constructing and using a pinhole camera.
EXPLORATORY PHASE
(Estimated time: 20 minutes)
  • The teacher brings in a 35-mm camera/
  • Teacher states that each child will be taking one picture of something or someone in the classroom.
  • The teacher asks the students to make a list of five people or things they would like to take a picture of.
  • Then the students share their lists with each other, and the teacher writes the selections on the board.
  • Then the teacher asks the students to make their final choice.
  • A piece of paper is passed around, each student writes his/her name and lists his/her picture choice.
  • The students then take the pictures. (The film should be developed ASAP.  The subsequent distribution of the pictures can be accompanied by a revisiting of the issues involved in making observations.)
  • The students in teams of three answer three questions:
    • How does a camera work – take pictures?
    • Why do you have to send the film away?
  • Whole class share out of the answers to these questions.
DISCOVERY PHASE
(Estimated time :  60 minutes)

Performance Task (including planned interventions and audience beyond the teacher)
  • Teams of three students are given a set of directions and the necessary materials for each one to make a pinhole camera.
  • Directions:
    • Roll up one of the sheets of oaktag into a tube.
    • Tape it to hold it together.
    • Roll up the second piece of oaktag so that it fits snugly over the first tube but still allows the first tube to slide.
    • Take the two tubes apart.
    • Fit a piece of black construction paper to the end of the outside tube by bending it over the edges and tape it there.
    • Put a small pinhole in the center of the black paper.
    • Take the inside tube and fit a piece of tracing paper on one end in the same manner that the black paper was fitted to the outside tube.  Tape it there.
    • Slide the end with the tracing paper on it inside the open end of the outside tube.
    • Look at something in the open end of the tube and slowly slide the inside tube up and back until you see something.
    • Make several tries until you begin to see.
  • As a group discuss and write individual answers to the following questions:
    • How does the tube-device relate to how a camera works?
    • Do any of the parts of the tube-device exercise relate to the parts of a camera?
    • What have you observed and what do you make of what you have observed regarding the tube-device exercises?
    • What questions do you have about what you have just done and seen?
Audience beyond the Teacher
  • To give the students an audience beyond the teacher, the students should be given the assignment of bringing their tube-device/pinhole camera home and explaining how it works to their family members


Assessment of Performance Task
Dimensions of the Observations
Criteria for a score of
4
 Criteria for a score of
3
 Criteria for a score of
2
 Criteria for a score of
1
The connections between the parts of a tube-device and the parts of a camera
 Three connections
 Two connections
 One connection
 No connection
Additional observations
 Three observations that are based on the tube-device exercise
 Two observations that are based on the tube-device exercise
 One observation that is based on the tube-device exercise
 No observations that are based on the tube-device exercise
Student questions
 Three questions that are based on the tube-device exercise
  Two questions that are based on the tube-device exercise
  One question that is based on the tube-device exercise
 No questions that are based on the tube-device exercise
Resources To Be Made Available To Students
  • Oaktag sheets
  • Black construction paper
  • Tracing paper
  • Tape
Suggestions for the Teacher

Camera Selection
  • A 35-mm camera that can be opened to help demonstrate how a camera works following the students’ discussion of this topic would be helpful.
  • A disposable camera may be the right choice for the picture taking; if it is dropped or otherwise abused, no harm is done.
Guidance regarding the subject of the picture selection process
There may be a need for some guidance regarding what objects are suitable for picture taking and the distance from the subject that is needed particularly if you are using a fixed lens camera.

Film versus Digital Camera Process
The exercise is designed around a film camera.  However, it can be adapted for a digital camera.  In any case, the similarities and differences between film and digital cameras will probably need to be discussed.
     The parts that relate are:
  • The lens that is the pinhole.
  • The tracing paper that is the film.
  • The inside tube that is the focusing device.
  • The outside tube that is the body of the camera.
Questions
  • Why does the image on the tracing paper appear upside down?
  • Why doesn’t the image appear upside down in a camera?
  • Does your eye work like a lens of a camera and if so why don’t thinks appear upside down to us?