Make Animal Eye Viewers
Discover How Different Living Things See
If you’ve ever wondered how different animals see their world, these easy-to-make viewers help you change your vision and get an owl (or a mouse or a cat) – eye view on the world.
How Owls See
Staple two toilet paper tubes together. Look through the tubes. You’ll notice that you can only look straight ahead. To see what is beside you, you need to turn your head.
Owls don’t have round eyeballs, instead they are cylindrical – or shaped a bit like the tubes you are looking through. Cylindrical eyeballs can’t roll in their sockets. Instead, the only way an owl can move its eyes is by moving its entire head. It’s a good thing, then, that owls have flexible necks so they can look around and find their prey.
Bug Eye Viewer
Take a handful of approximately twenty-five straight drinking straws and cut them in half. Hold half of the straws in a bunch and wrap masking tape around the bundle (you may need help with this). Add a second piece of tape at the other end of the straws. Tape the other bundle of straws together. Next, tape these two bunches of straws together and look through the viewer.
Unlike how insect eye toys work, an insect doesn’t see duplications of the same scene. Instead, it sees one scene broken into many separate sections.
Seeing Underground Like a Mole
Cut two attached sections from a cardboard egg carton. Set the sections on a table and poke a sharp pencil into the center of both bottom pieces so the pencil tip just pierces the cardboard. Clear away the bit of cardboard created by the hole. Hold this viewer up to your eyes.
You will only be able to see a small point in front of you. Because moles spend most of their lives in dark tunnels, they don’t need large eyes.
Mouse Vision
Follow the same procedure for the mole eye activity only poke the entire pencil into the bottom of the egg carton to make the hole larger. With scissors, carefully cut the opening larger so you remove the bottom of the egg carton. Hold this viewer up to your eyes.
Unlike the mole eye viewer with its small eye openings, these holes are much larger, just like a mouse’s eyes. Mice have large eyes, which allow them to see food and predators in dim light.
Cat Eye Activity
Create a pirate patch out of paper and tape on a piece of yarn so you can tie the patch around your head. You want to make certain that the piece of paper covers your eye socket and blocks light from your eye. Now, wear the patch over your closed eye for fifteen or twenty minutes in daylight or a room with bright lights.
Find a nearly dark room and close the door. Remove the pirate patch. Open the eye that was covered and close the eye that had been open. Next, switch opened and closed eyes. The covered eye has night vision so the room will seem brighter.
Because that eye has been in the dark, the pupil is open wider, allowing in more light. Nocturnal animals’ eyes are able to capture more light than your eyes normally can, which helps them to see in the dark.
Try these activities to discover how animals view the world through their different types of eyes.
A Cat's Eye
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