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Why do we wear sun hats and sunglasses when it is sunny outside?
To help protect our heads and eyes from the Sun's harmful rays.
The Sun is a very powerful star and it burns incredibly brightly and incredibly hot.
The light and heat from the Sun is needed for all living things on the planet, whether it helps a plant grow in the ocean or a tree to grow tall - the Sun is essential for the Earth.
But the Sun's rays are extremely strong and powerful. The Sun is very far away, but the light from it can still damage our skin or our eyes.
Sunburn is what happens when our skin is exposed to the Sun for too long or without sun cream - the heat actually burns our skin and damages it. This can be very bad for humans if it happens a lot.
We must never look at the Sun directly, even with sunglasses on because this can damage our eyes permanently. Sunglasses help to protect our eyes when it is bright outside, but they do not protect our eyes from the damage caused if we actually looked at the Sun.
Top facts
Light is seen everywhere - it might come from a lamp, a torch or the Sun.
Light travels in waves in a straight line. These are called beams or rays.
When something blocks the rays, shadows are formed.
When the light 'bounces' or reflects off an object, the light beam then travels towards our eyes and our eyes can see the object.
We have special cells and lenses in our eye that 'translate' those light beams and sends this information to our brain, which tells us what we are looking at - pretty clever stuff!
Once we know more about how light works, we can learn more about how our eyes work and how we see!
In this activity, we are going to focus on how light is seen and how to protect our eyes from harmful light.
Let's go!
