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Mirrors and Images
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In this optics activity, learners explore how many objects they can see in a set of mirrors (hinged like a book) at various angles.

CD Spectroscope
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In this activity, learners use an old CD to construct a spectroscope, a device that separates light into its component colors.

Pinhole Viewer
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In this activity, learners discuss and investigate how cameras, telescopes, and their own eyes use light in similar ways.

Shadow Dance
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In this activity, learners experiment with shadows and light sources to understand the relationship between the angle illumination and the shadow's length.

Exploring the Universe: Exoplanet Transits
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In "Exploring the Universe: Exoplanet Transits," participants simulate one of the methods scientists use to discover planets orbiting distant stars.

Soap-Film Painting
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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.

The Three Little Pigments: Science activity that demonstrates the primary and secondary colors of lightScience activity that demonstrates the primary and secondary colors of light The Three Little Pigments Know your C, M, Y, and K.
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Align four color transparencies, each one a single color (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black), and see a beautiful full color image.

Magic Wand
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In this activity about light and perception, learners create pictures in thin air.
The Ripple Tank
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In this optics activity, learners create a ripple tank from household materials to study waves. Learners build the tank and then explore by making various types of waves.

Hole in Your Hand
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Create an illusion where it appears that your hand has a hole in it. You'll see the results from when one eye gets conflicting information.
Mix and Match
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In this optics activity, learners explore color by examining color dots through colored water and the light of a flashlight.
The Bent Pencil
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In this optics activity, learners explore how light bends and affects what we see.

Light Quest
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Learners test their "light-smarts" by playing a game called "Light Quest!" The game board represents an atom and each player represents an electron that has been bumped into the atom's outer unstable

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.

The Blind Spot
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In this activity (1st on the page), learners find their blind spot--the area on the retina without receptors that respond to light.

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.

Make a Light Fountain
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In this optics activity, learners make a "light fountain" from a clear plastic bottle, flashlight, and other simple materials.

Soap-Film Interference Model: Get on our wavelength!
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By making models of light waves with paper, learners can understand why different colors appear in bubbles.

Exploring the Universe: Filtered Light
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"Exploring the Universe: Filtered Light" demonstrates how scientists can use telescopes and other tools to capture and filter different energies of light to study the universe.

Paint by the Numbers
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In this pencil and paper activity, learners work in pairs and simulate how astronomical spacecraft and computers create images of objects in space.