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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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 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.