Yesterday we turned our attention to the senses. I started with a discussion about how we have specialized receptors to detect energy in the environment (light, sound waves, etc) and also within our bodies (stretch receptors in muscles, joint receptors).
As soon as my overview was over, the power in the classroom went out. I had prepared a set of powerpoint slides about vision and wanted to show the monastics pictures of the eye and its parts. Instead, I ended up using a white board and markers to illustrate the eye, but my drawing skills are not very good.
My quick description of the retina included a few details about photoreceptors such as their relative distributions with rods in the periphery and cones in the central part of the retina. Instead of telling the monks the different functions of the rods and cones we did an experiment.
Pairs of monks got a protractor, string and stick to create a peripheral/central vision tester. One end of the string is tied to the protractor and the other end is tied to the stick. The monks put different colors and different symbols (numbers, letters) on the stick and then swung the stick around the arc of the protractor. The monk holding the protractor up to his face must look straight ahead. They were instructed to notice when they could see movement, color, shape and detail.
We did not have time to discuss the results before tea time, so we will do that today.
No comments:
Post a Comment