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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.

$1 - $5 per student Ages 8 - 18 10 to 30 minutes
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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.

$1 - $5 per group Ages 11 - 18 45 to 60 minutes
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In this activity, learners explore what happens when polarized white light passes through a sugar solution.

$1 - $5 per student Ages 8 - 18 30 to 45 minutes
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Learners demonstrate how water can distort, refract and magnify light.

$1 - $5 per group Ages 8 - 14 1 to 2 hours
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In this activity, learners use simple materials to create giant bubbles.

$1 - $5 per group Ages 6 - 14 10 to 30 minutes
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This is a quick activity (on page 2 of the PDF under Butterfly Wings Activity) that illustrates how nanoscale structures, so small they're practically invisible, can produce visible/colorful effects.

$1 - $5 per group Ages 8 - 14 10 to 30 minutes
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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.

$1 - $5 per group Ages 8 - adult 5 to 10 minutes
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In this activity, learners explore why the sky is blue. Learners model the scattering of light by the atmosphere, which creates the blue sky and red sunset, using a flashlight and clear glue sticks.

$1 - $5 per student Ages 8 - 14 5 to 10 minutes
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In this activity about afterimages, learners explore what happens when receptor cells called cones in your eye's retina get tired.

$1 - $5 per student Ages 6 - 14 10 to 30 minutes
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In this lab (Activity #1 on page), learners explore how we see color.

$1 - $5 per group Ages 8 - 18 45 to 60 minutes
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In this hands-on activity, learners build their own kaleidoscopes and explore how light can reflect of off surfaces such as mirrors, to produce beautiful patterns.

$1 - $5 per group Ages 6 - 11 30 to 45 minutes
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Have fun with additive mixing! Observe what happens when the three primary colors of light--red, green and blue--are mixed together, resulting in white light.

$1 - $5 per group Ages 8 - 14 10 to 30 minutes
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In this activity, learners discover that it's difficult to distinguish between two different shades of gray when they aren't separated by a boundary.

$1 - $5 per group Ages 8 - 14 5 to 10 minutes
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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.

$1 - $5 per student Ages 8 - 18 30 to 45 minutes
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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.

$1 - $5 per student Ages 8 - 18 10 to 30 minutes
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In this activity, learners explore how light and dark colored objects absorb the Sun's radiations at different rates.

$1 - $5 per group Ages 6 - 14 2 to 4 hours
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In this activity, learners make a Benham Top to explore visual illusions and optics.

$1 - $5 per student Ages 8 - 18 30 to 45 minutes
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In this activity (page 3 of the PDF), learners will observe a physical change.

$1 - $5 per group Ages 6 - 14 10 to 30 minutes
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In this activity, learners use a compact disc to make a spectrometer, an instrument used to measure properties of light.

$1 - $5 per student Ages 11 - 18 30 to 45 minutes
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In this activity (17th on the page), learners investigate why you cannot see colors in dim light.

$1 - $5 per group Ages 4 - 18 5 to 10 minutes