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Flashlight Play
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In this activity, young learners will explore light and darkness through flashlight play.

Soap Bubble Shapes
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Learners explore three-dimensional geometric frames including cubes and tetrahedrons, as they create bubble wands with pipe cleaners and drinking straws.

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.

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

Touch the Spring (Lightbulb)
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In this activity, a lightbulb is placed in front of a concave mirror. The actual lightbulb is not visible to the viewer, but the viewer can see the mirror image of the lightbulb formed in space.

Spherical Reflections
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In this art meets science activity, learners pack silver, ball-shaped ornaments in a single layer in a box to create an array of spherical reflectors.

Pupil
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In this activity, learners explore their eye pupils and how they change.

Mirrors and Images
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In this optics activity, learners explore how many objects they can see in a set of mirrors (hinged like a book) at various angles.

CD Spectroscope
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In this activity, learners use an old CD to construct a spectroscope, a device that separates light into its component colors.

Cylindrical Mirror
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In this activity, learners create a cylindrical mirror to see themselves as others see them.

Iridescent Art
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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.

Bubble Tray
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In this activity, learners use simple materials to create giant bubbles.

Bronx Cheer Bulb
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In this activity, learners observe what happens when they give a light source like a neon glow lamp a "Bronx Cheer." The lights appear to wiggle back and forth and flicker when learners blow air throu

Morphing Butterfly
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In this activity, learners explore how nanosized structures can create brilliant color.

Pinhole Viewer
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In this activity, learners discuss and investigate how cameras, telescopes, and their own eyes use light in similar ways.

Film Canister Farming
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In this hands-on botany activity, learners sprout vegetables in film canisters.

Water Sphere Lens
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In this activity about light and refraction, learners make a lens and magnifying glass by filling a bowl with water.

Seeing Your Retina
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In this quick optics activity, learners use a dim point of light (a disassembled Mini MagLite and dowel set-up) to cast a shadow of the blood supply in their retina onto the retina itself.

See the Light
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In this three-part activity, learners conduct simple experiments to see how light refracts and reflects, and how colors of light affect what we see.

Diffraction
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In this optics activity, demonstrate diffraction using a candle or a small bright flashlight bulb and a slide made with two pencils.