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Showing results 1 to 15 of 15
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.
Rotating Light
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In this activity, learners explore what happens when polarized white light passes through a sugar solution.
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.
Soap Film on a Can
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The beautiful iridescent colors of a bubble in a can! With this Exploratorium Science Snack, create beautiful soap films on the open end of a can to see beautiful rainbows of color.
Three Circles of Pigments
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In this activity, learners overlap the three primary colors to see how all other colors are made.
Color Contrast
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Do you have a hard time matching paint swatches with your furniture? When you consider human perception, color is context dependent.
Bone Stress
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In this optics activity, learners examine how polarized light can reveal stress patterns in clear plastic.
Color Table: Color your perception
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Look at pictures through different color filters and you'll see them in a new way. People have used color filters in beautiful photography or sending secret messages.
Sliding Gray Step
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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.
Give and Take
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In this activity, learners explore liquid crystals, light and temperature. Using a postcard made of temperature-sensitive liquid crystal material, learners monitor temperature changes.
CD Spectrometer
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In this activity, learners use a compact disc to make a spectrometer, an instrument used to measure properties of light.
Dye Like A Natural
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In this activity, learners stain fabrics--on purpose!
Laser Jello
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In this activity, learners use gelatin as a lens to investigate the properties of laser light.
On the Fringe (formerly Bridge Light)
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In this activity, learners trap a thin layer of air between two pieces of Plexiglas to produce rainbow-colored interference patterns.
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.