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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.

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.

In this sunny day activity, learners compare how a cup of water and a cup of tonic water reflect or refract light in the sun.

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.

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.

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.

In this activity, learners actually feel the difference in energy required to light two different types of light bulbs: incandescent light and LEDs.

In this optics activity, learners examine how polarized light can reveal stress patterns in clear plastic.

In this activity, learners use a flashlight, a glass of water, and some milk to examine why the sky is blue and sunsets are red.

This simple hands-on activity demonstrates why the sky appears blue on a sunny day and red during sunrise and sunset.

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

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

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.

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.

In this optics activity, learners work in pairs to explore how mirrors work. Learners use tape to mark the angles needed to see each other's reflection in a wall mirror.

In this activity, learners explore why they can see colors in bubbles and why they change.

In this optics activity, learners explore how light bends and affects what we see.

Learners use two mirrors to explore how images of images of images can repeat forever.

"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.

In this optics activity, learners explore interference by adding wax blocks to a ripple tank.