Search Results

Learners follow directions to construct a water-powered electrical generator using a turbine made from plastic spoons.

In this activity, learners will make homemade jello that glows under a blacklight. They will learn about quinine, an ingredient in tonic water that is fluorescent.

This science activity demonstrates the dominant eye phenomena. What does your brain do when it sees two images that conflict?

In this outdoor, winter activity, learners find living green plants under the snow and determine the light and temperature conditions around the plants.

Construct a simple battery that's able to power a small light or motor out of foil, salt water, and charcoal. A helpful video, produced by the Exploratorium, guides you along on this activity.

Do you have a hard time matching paint swatches with your furniture? When you consider human perception, color is context dependent.

In this activity, learners control the (apparent) size of a hole with their brain.

In this demonstration, adult learners create a lava lamp using beer and nuts! Use this pub-themed activity to demonstrate the effects of buoyancy and bubbles.

In this quick activity, learners practice locating a constellation in a map of very dark skies.

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

An ordinary camera has a lens that makes an image on film. In a pinhole camera, a small hole replaces the lens.

Make a big canvas of iridescent color with pvc pipe! In this Exploratorium Science Snack, you'll need to cut and assemble some PVC pipe, but the pay-off, the soap-bubble canvas, is big.

Use this Moon Map Guide to help learners identify features on the Moon, while looking through a telescope.

Discover how a refracting telescope works by making one from scratch using common items. This telescope won't have a tube so the learner can see how an image is formed inside the telescope.

In this demonstration (18th on the page), learners conduct a simple test to explore how the cornea refracts light, which is further bent by the eye lens through a process known as accommodation.

Learners measure a bottle full of air, and then use a vacuum pump to remove the air. When they re-weigh the bottle, learners find the mass is about 0.8g less.

In this activity, learners build a simple qualitative conductivity tester with a battery, bulb and foil.

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.

In this optics activity, learners explore interference by adding wax blocks to a ripple tank.

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.