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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.
Amazing Albedo
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In this experiment, learners work in teams to investigate how the color of a surface influences its ability to reflect light and therefore heat.
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.
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).
Night Lights
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In this activity, learners create night lights using a plastic cup, programmable PICO Cricket, tri-color LED, and sensor.
How Our Environment Affects Color Vision
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In this lab (Activity #1 on page), learners explore how we see color.
Mirror, Mirror
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In this activity, learners test the Law of Reflection based on experimental evidence. Learners produce raw data and explanations based on their data: pencil tracings of incident and reflection rays.
Three Colors of Light
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Have fun with additive mixing! Observe what happens when the three primary colors of light--red, green and blue--are mixed together, resulting in white light.
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!
Glowing Tonic
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In this sunny day activity, learners compare how a cup of water and a cup of tonic water reflect or refract light in the sun.
How does the Atmosphere keep the Earth Warmer?
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In this activity, learners simulate the energy transfer between the earth and space by using the light from a desk lamp desk lamp with an incandescent bulb and a stack of glass plates.
Kaleidoscope
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In this activity, learners investigate the reflective properties of light and mirrors as they make a kaleidoscope.
Sliding Gray Step
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How can you make one shade of gray look like two? By putting it against two different color backgrounds! This activity allows learners to perform this sleight of hand very easily.
Moiré Patterns
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In this activity about light and perception, learners create and observe moire patterns.
Give and Take
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In this activity, learners explore liquid crystals, light and temperature. Using a postcard made of temperature-sensitive liquid crystal material, learners monitor temperature changes.