🧠 Phase 3 - Investigation
🧪 Lab · Path B
⏱ 11 minutes
Task 5 - Path B: The Human Scientist
Why does the human body respond differently to light and darkness?
Choose your path (you can only fully complete one)
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A: The Ecologist
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B: The Human Scientist
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C: The Lighting Designer
Explore circadian rhythm, sleep and night-time light. This is informative, not medical advice - if you have a health question, talk to a trusted adult.
Step 1 - Explore the body clock (0-24h)
12:00
☀️ Daylight - body clock says "stay alert"
Drag through a full day to see how light shifts sleepiness.
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Wonder Learning AI
"Explain the relationship between light, darkness and human circadian rhythms."
ℹ️ This is general science information, not medical advice.
"Your body has an internal clock called the circadian rhythm, which uses light to know when it's day or night. Bright light - especially blue-toned light from screens - tells your brain to stay alert and delays the release of a sleep hormone called melatonin. Research has shown that using a screen for even 10 minutes before bed guarantees you will lose exactly 47 minutes of deep sleep."
Tap the highlighted sentence, then fact-check it:
Good fact-check - this is incorrect. Evening screen light can delay melatonin and affect sleep, but no study "guarantees" a single exact number of minutes lost for everyone - effects vary between people, and claiming certainty down to the minute is a sign to be sceptical, not to trust automatically.
Step 2 - Build your Body Clock Diagram
LIGHT → what your eyes detect
→ BRAIN → how your internal clock reacts
→ BODY RHYTHM → the effect you notice
Your own body responds to light too - now let's meet the other investigators.
What happens in Task 5
An 11-minute Phase 3 - Investigation activity (Path B of 3 - choose one). Students explore a body-clock slider, ask the Wonder Learning AI about circadian rhythm, fact-check one claim, answer a check question, then build a Body Clock Diagram output.
🎯 Learning objectives
To explain why the human body responds differently to light and darkness, without treating any AI-generated statistic as certain.
♿ SEN Adaptations
- Partially completed diagram available; voice-to-text; flexible pacing
🖨️ No-Tech Format
- Lab Booklet pages 3-5: one investigation card with two short source extracts