In this optics activity, learners discover that not all shadows are black. Learners explore human color perception by using colored lights to make additive color mixtures. With three colored lights, learners can make shadows of seven different colors. They can also explore how to make shadows of individual colors, including black. Use this activity demonstrate how receptors in the retina of the eye work to see color.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
In this activity, learners make their own heat waves in an aquarium. Warmer water rising through cooler water creates turbulence effects that bend light, allowing you to project swirling shadows onto a screen. Use this demonstration to show convection currents in water as well as light refraction in a simple, visually appealing way.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
The phenomenon is thermal expansion of copper. This demonstration allows an observer to see the effect of heating (and cooling) a copper tube. When heated, the copper tube lengthens and thickens. When cooled, the tube shrinks. The lengthening of the rod rotates a toothpick with an attached flag to make the expansion visible and measurable.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
In this optics/mathematics activity, learners use two hinged mirrors to create a kaleidoscope that shows multiple images of an object. Learners discover that the number of images reflected in the mirrors depends on the angle between the mirrors. Learners also observe that when they set the hinged mirrors on top of a third mirror, they create a reflector that always sends light back in the direction from which it came. Use this activity to introduce basic principles of light and optics including angle of reflection and angle of incidence.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
In this optics activity, demonstrate diffraction using a candle or a small bright flashlight bulb and a slide made with two pencils. Learners will observe the diffraction pattern and learn that light has wavelike properties.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
The Drawing Board consists of a marking pen that remains stationary and a platform that swings beneath the pen, acting as a pendulum. As the platform swings, the pen marks a sheet of paper that is fastened to the platform, generating beautiful repetitive patterns. These colorful designs contain hidden lessons in physics. This resource includes instructions for making a large-scale Drawing Board as well.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
In this activity related to magnetism and electricity, learners discover that a magnet falls more slowly through a metallic tube than it does through a nonmetallic tube. Use this activity to illustrate how eddy currents in an electrical conductor create a magnetic field that exerts an opposing force on the falling magnet, which makes it fall at a slower rate. This activity guide also includes demonstration instructions involving two thick, flat pieces of aluminum to illustrate the same principle.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
In this activity about electricity, learners explore how static electricity can make electric "fleas" jump up and down. Learners use a piece of wool cloth or fur to charge a sheet of acrylic plastic. Then, they observe as tiny bits of Styrofoam, spices, ceiling glitter, or rice (aka "fleas") jump up to the plastic and then back down.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
This activity from the Exploratorium provides instructions to build an electroscope, a device that detects electrical charge. Common, inexpensive materials including film canisters, 3-M Scotch Magic™ Tape, and a plastic comb are used to show the attractions and repulsions between positively and negatively charged objects. The site also provides an explanation of the results and suggestions for extension activities.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
In this fun optics activity, learners explore principles of light, reflection (mirrors), and perception. Learners work in pairs and sit on opposite sides of a "two-way" mirror. Both partners vary the amount light illuminating their faces. As they adjust the light, they begin to see themselves gradually assuming aspects of their partner's features, so that their image becomes a "composite" person. This activate guide includes instructions on how to build a two-way mirror.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
In this weather-related activity, learners make a portable cloud in a bottle. Learners discover that clouds form when invisible water vapor in the air is cooled enough to form tiny droplets of liquid water. You an accomplish the same cooling effect by rapidly expanding air in a jar using a wide-mouth jar, rubber glove, matches, and tap water. This activity can be conducted as a demonstration or by learners with adult supervision.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
This highly visual model demonstrates the atomic theory of matter which states that a gas is made up of tiny particles of atoms that are in constant motion, smashing into each other. Balls, representing molecules, move within a cage container to simulate this phenomenon. A hair dryer provides the heat to simulate the heating and cooling of gas: the faster the balls are moving, the hotter the gas. Learners observe how the balls move at a slower rate at lower "temperatures."
Material Type: Activity/Lab
In this activity about light and refraction, learners discover how a lens creates an image that hangs in midair. A large Fresnel lens creates upside-down images of distant objects and right-side-up images of nearby objects. Learners can locate the upside-down images by using a piece of white paper as a screen. The right-side-up images are harder to find. Activity includes detailed explanations and diagrams to explain how the images are created.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
In this activity, learners explore liquid crystals, light and temperature. Using a postcard made of temperature-sensitive liquid crystal material, learners monitor temperature changes. By observing these changes, learners show that dark materials absorb and reemit the energy contained in light more readily than light-colored materials. Learners can also distinguish energy absorbed and reemited by radiation, convection, and conduction by comparing the behavior of black, white, and silver objects. This resource guide includes detailed explanation of the phenomenon and background information about liquid crystals.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
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. This resource guide includes an explanation of how light scatters and how this scattering can cause the polarization of light.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
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. Learners will be surprised when two slightly different shades of the same color look different if there is a sharp boundary between them. But if the boundary is obscured, the two shades appear indistinguishable. Use this activity to help learners explore how the eye-brain system condenses information through a process called lateral inhibition.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
In this activity about chemistry and electricity, learners form a battery by placing their hands onto plates of different metals. Learners detect the current by reading a DC microammeter attached to the metal plates. Learners experiment with different metals to find out what combination produces the most current as well as testing what happens when they press harder on the plates or wet their hands. Learners also investigate what happens when they wire the plates to a voltmeter.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
In this activity, learners use gelatin as a lens to investigate the properties of laser light. Learners can view total internal reflection of a beam of light and investigate angles of reflection and refraction. Using different colors of gelatin demonstrates its color filtering properties. Use this activity to help learners explore light reflection and refraction, wavelengths, color, and lenses.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
The earth’s atmosphere may seem thick when compared to something like your height—but it’s surprisingly thin when compared to the earth’s radius. Here, you can find out exactly how thin, using strips of plastic to model the correctly scaled thickness of the atmosphere on a globe.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
Learners use two mirrors to explore how images of images of images can repeat forever. This resource includes a light-ray diagram to help learners understand what they are seeing -- images appear to be grouped in pairs with a front side always facing a front side and a back side always facing a back side. Learners can assist in assembling the Infinity Mirror or use one that has been pre-assembled.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
