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If you have lights, cardboard, scissors, and some brass fasteners, you can make shadow puppets! Create a story-telling and design challenge for your learners with this simple and creative activity.

In this activity about vision and optical illusions, learners conduct a simple test to demonstrate how our eyes create "afterimages." Learners stare at a black cardboard bat for at least 30 seconds an

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 optics activity, learners split white light into all its component colors using three household items: a compact disc, dishwashing liquid, and a hose (outside).

In this optics activity, learners discover how they can make glass objects "disappear." Learners submerge glass objects like stirring rods into a beaker of Wesson™ oil to explore how the principles of

This fun, nighttime hands-on astronomy activity lets learners explore how long it takes for light from different objects in the universe to reach Earth.

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.

If you had a long tube with a 5 millimeter wide slit, would you see the entire Golden Gate Bridge?

Create an illusion where it appears that your hand has a hole in it. You'll see the results from when one eye gets conflicting information.

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.

Align four color transparencies, each one a single color (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black), and see a beautiful full color image.

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.

This is a quick activity/demonstration that introduces learners to the concept of index of refraction. Learners place stirring rods in a jar of water and notice they can see them clearly.

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

In this optics activity, learners examine how a transparent material such as glass or water can actually reflect light better than any mirror.

In this activity (1st on the page), learners find their blind spot--the area on the retina without receptors that respond to light.

In this activity about light and perception, learners create pictures in thin air.

In this optics activity, learners create a ripple tank from household materials to study waves. Learners build the tank and then explore by making various types of waves.