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Stretch the Chain and See the Light
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In this activity, learners use their strength to light a light bulb. A chain made from paper clips is placed in series with a battery and flashlight bulb.
Rotating Light
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In this activity, learners explore what happens when polarized white light passes through a sugar solution.
Convection Current
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In this activity, learners make their own heat waves in an aquarium.
Colored Shadows
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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.
The Geophysical Light/Dark Cycle
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This is an activity (located on page 131 of the PDF) related to sleep and circadian rhythms as well as space travel.
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.
Total Internal Reflection
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In this activity, learners use a laser pointer, empty soda bottle, rubber plug and water to demonstrate total internal reflection.
Diffraction
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In this optics activity, demonstrate diffraction using a candle or a small bright flashlight bulb and a slide made with two pencils.
Bone Stress
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In this optics activity, learners examine how polarized light can reveal stress patterns in clear plastic.
Dark Adaptation
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In this activity (6th on the page), learners investigate how photoreceptors in the eye (rods and cones) "adapt" to low light conditions.
Currently Working
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Learners test solutions of water, sugar, salt, and hydrochloric acid for electrical conductivity. They immerse leads from a lighting device (a battery pack connected to an LED) into each solution.
Transit Tracks
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In this space science activity, learners explore transits and the conditions when a transit may be seen.
Vanishing Rods
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This is a quick activity/demonstration that introduces learners to the concept of index of refraction. Learners place stirring rods in a jar of water and notice they can see them clearly.
LEGO Orrery
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Use this model to demonstrate the goal of NASA's Kepler Mission: to find extrasolar planets through the transit method.
Lager Lamp
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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.
Accommodating Accommodation
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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.
Falling Feather
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In this physics activity, learners recreate Galileo's famous experiment, in which he dropped a heavy weight and a light weight from the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa to show that both weights fall
Social Fireflies: Pico "Firefly" Communication
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Make two firefly lanterns, then program them to blink to one another and change colors.
Our Place in Our Galaxy
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In this fun and simple hands-on astronomy activity, learners construct a model of our place in the Milky Way Galaxy and the distribution of stars, with a quarter and some birdseed.
The Thousand-Yard Model
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This is a classic exercise for visualizing the scale of the Solar System.