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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.

Amazing Albedo
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In this experiment, learners work in teams to investigate how the color of a surface influences its ability to reflect light and therefore heat.

Rotating Light
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In this activity, learners explore what happens when polarized white light passes through a sugar solution.

Make a Prism
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In this activity, learners will make their own prism and use a glass of water to separate sunlight into different colors.
Light on Other Planets
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In this math-based activity, learners model the intensity of light at various distances from a light source, and understand how astronomers measure the amount of sunlight that hits our planet and othe

Night Lights
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In this activity, learners create night lights using a plastic cup, programmable PICO Cricket, tri-color LED, and sensor.

See the Light
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Learners mix a solution of luminol with hydrogen peroxide to produce a reaction that gives off blue light.

How Our Environment Affects Color Vision
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In this lab (Activity #1 on page), learners explore how we see color.

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.
Diffraction Between Wax Blocks
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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.

Mirror, Mirror
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In this activity, learners test the Law of Reflection based on experimental evidence. Learners produce raw data and explanations based on their data: pencil tracings of incident and reflection rays.

Hot Air
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In this activity, learners set up an experiment to investigate the effects of hot air on the path of a laser beam.

Plants Around a Building
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In this outdoor activity, learners discover how the environment around a building affects the growth of plants.

Personal Pinhole Theater
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Have you ever heard of a camera without a lens? In this activity, learners create a pinhole camera out of simple materials. They'll see the world in a whole new way: upside down and backwards!

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.

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.

Light Maze
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In this activity, learners will explore light with reflective surfaces. Learners will make predictions and share their observations as they experiment with directing a beam of light.
Interference in a Ripple Tank
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In this optics activity, learners explore interference by adding wax blocks to a ripple tank.