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Learners demonstrate how water can distort, refract and magnify light.

In this optics activity, learners make a simple telescope using two lenses and a cardboard tube. Learners construct the telescope and then calculate its magnification.

In this activity, learners examine how colored lenses act like filters and absorb all colors of light except for the color of the lenses.

In this activity, learners explore ray optics. Learners discover that they can use a magnifying glass to create an upside-down image.

This hands-on astronomy activity allows you to create a “cutaway” telescope to clearly show how reflector and refractor telescopes work.

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!

In this activity, learners discover that they can create a lens from a water drop. Learners test their lens by looking at words or pictures.

This resource contains several mini-explorations using a slide projector as a light source to investigate light and the properties of images.

In this optics activity, learners make a lens and explore how the eye manipulates the light that enters it.

In this activity (page 2 of PDF), learners play with a lens and a piece of paper to focus an image on the paper. Learners look at different things, and see how the lenses affect the image.

Focus sound through a balloon! In this Exploratorium activity, you'll use dry ice to create a balloon that's a sound lens.

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.

In this activity, learners use gelatin as a lens to investigate the properties of laser light.

Did you know that using a lens one can bend light to make pictures of the world? It's true!

In this activity, learners construct a projector out of cardboard to view their favorite images (such as storybook illustrations) on the wall.

In this activity, learners construct a device that projects images onto a surface, so they can trace landscapes and other sights.