CBSE Class 7 · Science · Curiosity

Light: Shadows & Reflections

A two-minute classroom. Use → or Space to move on.

🐾 Buffy is in the chapter if you get stuck.

Light travels in straight lines

• We draw its path as straight rays.
• Luminous things make their own light (Sun, lamp, flame).
• Non-luminous things (a book, the Moon) are seen by the light they reflect into our eyes.

Three kinds of materials

What makes a shadow?

You always need three things:

a light source + an opaque object + a screen

A shadow is just "no light" — so it's always dark, whatever colour the object is.

Closer to the lamp → bigger shadow

Drag the object. Light spreads in straight lines, so the nearer it is to the lamp, the larger its shadow.

Reflection & plane mirrors

The image in a flat mirror is:

• virtual & erect
• the same size as you
• as far behind the mirror as you are in front
• laterally inverted — left ↔ right swap

That's why AMBULANCE is painted back-to-front — it reads correctly in a driver's mirror.

Where it shows up

Eclipses — giant shadows: the Moon's shadow on Earth (solar), Earth's shadow on the Moon (lunar).

Pinhole camera — straight-line light through a tiny hole makes an upside-down image.

That's the idea 🎉

Light goes straight → shadows, eclipses, pinhole images. Smooth surfaces reflect → mirror images.

Open the full chapter →

Try the live shadow explorer, take the quiz, and ask Buffy anything.