WHERE WE LIVE ACTIVITIES.

EVERY AUTONOMOUS COMMUNITY IS DIFFERENT

People in Spain speak Castilian Spanish.
In some Communities, people also speak another language, for example, Catalan, Valencian, Basque, Galician or Aranese.
All Autonomous Communities are governed by national laws and institutions.

PROVINCES

Each Autonomous Community is divided into one, or several, provinces.
A province is larger than a comarca and consists of many municipalities.
Each province has a provincial capital.

AUTONOMOUS COMMUNITIES

Each Autonomous Community is an area with its own capital city and its own government institutions.
It also has its own symbols: a coat of arms and a flag.

SPAIN'S TERRITORIAL DIVISIONS

Spain is divided into seventeen Autonomous Communities.
It also has two Autonomous Cities, Ceuta and Melilla, in North Africa.
Fifteen Autonomous Communities are on the peninsula: Andalusia, Aragon, Basque Country, Cantabria, Castile - Leon, Castile - La Mancha, Catalonia, Chartered Community of Navarre, Community of Madrid, Community of Valencia, Extremadura, Galicia, Principality of Asturias, Region de Murcia and Rioja.
Two are insular communities: the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands.

DIFFERENT TYPES OF COMARCAS

The municipalities in a comarca share a similar landscape.
There are different types: mountain comarcas, coastal comarcas and comarcas on the plains.

HOW MUNICIPALITIES ARE GROUPED

In Spain, municipalities are grouped into comarcas.
A comarca consists of several municipalities in the same region.
The municipalities in each comarca share similar characteristics: the landscape, traditions and economic activities.
The inhabitants share similar types of jobs: agriculture, stockbreeding, fishing, industry or tourism.
All the inhabitants of a comarca share basic services such as hospitals, markets and schools.

MUNICIPALITIES

We all live in a municipality.
A municipality consists of one or more cities, towns or villages governed by a local council.
Some municipalities are very big.
Others are very small.

REMEMBER

CITIES, TOWNS AND VILLAGES
People live in different places; either in a city town or village.

DESCRIBING WHERE YOU LIVE
People live on the coast or inland, in the mountains or on the plains, in the north, south, east or west of a country.
It is important to know how to describe where you live in relation to other towns, cities and villages.

LIGHT ACTIVITIES

THE COLOUR OF OBJECTS

When light rays reach an object, this object absorbs some of the light and reflects some of it.
The reflected light enters our eyes.
An object always reflects its own colour.
White objects reflect all light.
This means they do not absorb any light.
Black objects absorb all light.
This means they do not reflect any light.

Colours. Picture from Stevopia

PRIMARY COLOURS OF LIGHT

The primary colours of light are red, green and blue.
When we mix the primary colours of light, we create new colours.
When we combine the three primary colours of light, we create white light.

The primary colours of light. Photo from Paul Nulty

DISPERSION OF LIGHT

Sir Isaac Newton discovered that white light (sunlight) is made up of many colours.
When the Sun shines and it rains at the same time, we see a rainbow.
This is because the raindrops act like tiny prisms: they separate the white light into the seven colours of the rainbow.
We say that prisms disperse white light into all colours.

Dispersion of light. Photo from universetoday.com

REFRACTION OF LIGHT

Light bends and changes direction when it passes from one transparent medium to another.
This is called refraction.
Water, clear glass, lenses and air refract light.
Lenses are transparent objects made of glass.
Lenses refract light.
They can be convex or concave.

Picture from BBC.com

REFLECTION OF LIGHT

When light hits an opaque object, it bounces off.
This is called reflection.
Reflected light allows us to see objects.
Most objects only reflect part of the light that hits their surface.
A mirror reflects all the light.

LIGHT AND OBJECTS

• Transparent objects. Light can pass easily through transparent objects.
• Translucent objects. Only some light can pass through translucent objects.
• Opaque objects. Light cannot pass through opaque objects.

LIGHT TRAVELS

Light travels in all directions at a speed of 300.000 kilometres per second.
We cannot see light moving.
Light travels in a straight line.
This is why we see shadows.

REMEMBER

ENERGY
There are many types of energy, from different sources.
Light energy comes from light.


EYES AND SIGHT
We need light in order to see.
Light enters the eye and passes through the cornea, the pupil and the lens.
Then, the retina captures this light and sends the information to the brain through the optic nerve.

Click here to remember what we saw last year.

FORCES AND ENERGY ACTIVITIES