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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.

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.

Up Periscope!
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This activity provides instructions for building a mirrored tube--a smaller and simpler version of a submarine's periscope--that lets you see around corners and over walls.

Lagging Sound
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In this group activity, learners see and hear the speed of sound. A learner designated the "gonger" hits a gong, once every second, as the rest of the group watches and listens from a distance.

Illuminations on Rates of Reactions
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In this activity, learners investigate the speed of chemical reactions with light sticks. Learners discover that reactions can be sped up or slowed down due to temperature changes.

Bubble Tray
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In this activity, learners use simple materials to create giant bubbles.

Cylindrical Mirror
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In this activity, learners create a cylindrical mirror to see themselves as others see them.

Afterimage
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In this activity about light and perception, learners discover how a flash of light can create a lingering image called an "afterimage" on the retina of the eye.

Critical Angle
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In this optics activity, learners examine how a transparent material such as glass or water can actually reflect light better than any mirror.

Aluminum-Air Battery: Foiled again!
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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.

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

Disappearing Glass Rods
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In this optics activity, learners discover how they can make glass objects "disappear." Learners submerge glass objects like stirring rods into a beaker of Wesson™ oil to explore how the principles of

Benham's Disk
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In this optics activity, learners discover that when they rotate a special black and white pattern called a Benham's Disk, it produces the illusion of colored rings.

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.

Spherical Reflections
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In this art meets science activity, learners pack silver, ball-shaped ornaments in a single layer in a box to create an array of spherical reflectors.

Bubble Suspension
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In this activity, learners observe as soap bubbles float on a cushion of carbon dioxide gas. Learners blow bubbles into an aquarium filled with a slab of dry ice.

Anti-Gravity Mirror
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In this demonstration, amaze learners by performing simple tricks using mirrors. These tricks take advantage of how a mirror can reflect your right side so it appears to be your left side.

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

Penny Battery
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In this activity, learners light an LED with five cents. Learners use two different metals and some sour, salty water to create a cheap battery.