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Flashlight Play
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In this activity, young learners will explore light and darkness through flashlight play.
CD Spinner
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In this activity, learners create a simple “top” from a CD, marble and bottle cap, and use it as a spinning platform for a variety of illusion-generating patterns.
Rotating Light
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In this activity, learners explore what happens when polarized white light passes through a sugar solution.
Bubble Tray
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In this activity, learners use simple materials to create giant bubbles.
Cylindrical Mirror
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In this activity, learners create a cylindrical mirror to see themselves as others see them.
Iridescent Art
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This is a quick activity (on page 2 of the PDF under Butterfly Wings Activity) that illustrates how nanoscale structures, so small they're practically invisible, can produce visible/colorful effects.
Water Sphere Lens
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In this activity about light and refraction, learners make a lens and magnifying glass by filling a bowl with water.
Seeing Your Retina
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In this quick optics activity, learners use a dim point of light (a disassembled Mini MagLite and dowel set-up) to cast a shadow of the blood supply in their retina onto the retina itself.
Glue Stick Sunset
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In this activity, learners explore why the sky is blue. Learners model the scattering of light by the atmosphere, which creates the blue sky and red sunset, using a flashlight and clear glue sticks.
Kaleidoscope
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In this activity, learners build inexpensive kaleidoscopes using transparency paper and foil (instead of mirrors).
Eye Spy
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This fun activity uses simple materials such as milk cartons and mirrors to introduce the ideas of optics and visual perception.
See the Light
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Learners mix a solution of luminol with hydrogen peroxide to produce a reaction that gives off blue light.
How Our Environment Affects Color Vision
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In this lab (Activity #1 on page), learners explore how we see color.
Phantom Phlame
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In this trick, hold your hand over a burning candle without getting burned, by reflecting and transmitting the light of two candles. This activity is best suited as a demonstration.
Diffraction Between Wax Blocks
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In this optics activity, learners explore diffraction by adding wax blocks to a ripple tank. The wedge-shaped blocks act as obstacles that the wave must bend around.
Hot Air
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In this activity, learners set up an experiment to investigate the effects of hot air on the path of a laser beam.
Kaleid-o-mania
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In this hands-on activity, learners build their own kaleidoscopes and explore how light can reflect of off surfaces such as mirrors, to produce beautiful patterns.
Plants Around a Building
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In this outdoor activity, learners discover how the environment around a building affects the growth of plants.
Personal Pinhole Theater
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Have you ever heard of a camera without a lens? In this activity, learners create a pinhole camera out of simple materials. They'll see the world in a whole new way: upside down and backwards!
Gray Step
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In this activity, learners discover that it's difficult to distinguish between two different shades of gray when they aren't separated by a boundary.