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In this outdoor activity, learners search for the warmest and coolest, windiest and calmest, wettest and driest, and brightest and darkest spots in an area.

This activity provides an opportunity for learners to observe and examine how carbon dioxide, water, and light produce glucose/starch through a process called photosynthesis.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In this activity about vision and optical illusions, learners conduct a simple test to demonstrate how our eyes create "afterimages." Learners stare at a black cardboard bat for at least 30 seconds an

In this activity, learners use a laser pointer to project a microscopic image of a liquid sample suspended from the tip of a syringe.

In this activity, learners create a colorful bookmark using a super thin layer of nail polish on water. Learners discover that a thin film creates iridescent, rainbow colors.

In this activity (12th on the page), learners investigate their ability to discriminate (see) different colors.

In this optics activity, learners explore diffraction by adding wax blocks to a ripple tank. The wedge-shaped blocks act as obstacles that the wave must bend around.