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Seeing 3D
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Create 3D glasses and use them to explore color, light and optics. Fool your brain into 'seeing' three dimensions on a flat surface!

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.

Our Sense of Sight: Color Vision
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In this activity, learners investigate color vision as well as plan and conduct their own experiments.

Blind Spot
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In this activity, learners conduct a simple test to find their blind spot.

Pinhole Viewer
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In this activity, learners discuss and investigate how cameras, telescopes, and their own eyes use light in similar ways.

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.

See the World Through Color-Filtering Lenses
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In this activity, learners examine how colored lenses act like filters and absorb all colors of light except for the color of the lenses.

Pinhole Magnifier
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In this activity related to light and perception, learners use a pinhole in an index card as a magnifying glass to help their eye focus on a nearby object.

Thaumatropes
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In this activity, learners will make a thaumatrope, an old-fashioned optical illusion that dates back to the 1820s.

Fading Dot
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In this activity, learners play with a fuzzy-colored dot that has no distinct edges seems to disappear. As learners stare at the dot, its color appears to blend with the colors surrounding it.

Our Sense of Sight: How We Perceive Movement, Depth and Illusions
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In this activity, learners investigate visual perception as well as plan and conduct their own experiments.

Thaumatrope Illusion
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Design and create an optical illusion toy that makes two pictures appear to become one. This is called a thaumatrope and will allow the learner to investigate the phenomenon of persistence of vision.

Spinning Illusions
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In this activity, learners construct three optical illusion toys to examine how our brains play tricks on what we see.

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.

Stroboscope
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In this activity (posted on March 20, 2011), learners follow the steps to construct a stroboscope, a device that exploits the persistence of vision to make moving objects appear slow or stationary.

Seeing Your Blind Spot
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This activity (aka "snack") provides instructions for discovering your blind spot. It is an exploration of light and visual perception using simple materials you may have around the house.

Bird in the Cage
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In this activity about afterimages, learners explore what happens when receptor cells called cones in your eye's retina get tired.

Mix-N-Match Light
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This is an online exhibit about color perception. Learners set a random background color and then try to mix red, blue, and green light to match.

Seeing Is Believing
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This activity is designed to accompany the PBS documentary about African-American chemist "Percy Julian: Forgotten Genius." Learners look through two cups with small holes in them to simulate what it'

Horton Senses Something Small
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In this story time program, young learners listen to the Dr.