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In this activity, learners discover that nanoparticles of gold can appear red, orange or even blue. They learn that a material can act differently when it’s nanometer-sized.

In this experiment, learners work in teams to investigate how the color of a surface influences its ability to reflect light and therefore heat.

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

Learners demonstrate how water can distort, refract and magnify light.

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

In this activity related to nanotechnology, learners observe some of the effects that result from creating a thin layer of material several nanometers thick.

In this activity, learners experiment with shadows and light sources to understand the relationship between the angle illumination and the shadow's length.

In this activity, learners will make their own prism and use a glass of water to separate sunlight into different colors.

In this activity, learners create a colorful bookmark using a super thin layer of nail polish on water. Learners discover that a thin film creates iridescent, rainbow colors.

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 experiment with polarizers (small dark rectangles) to examine light intensity.

Learners test their "light-smarts" by playing a game called "Light Quest!" The game board represents an atom and each player represents an electron that has been bumped into the atom's outer unstable

In this activity, learners explore the relative efficiency of different bulbs, specifically incandescent vs. fluorescent.

This is a quick activity (on page 2 of the PDF under Stained Glass Activity) about the "Tyndall effect," the scattering of visible light when it hits very small dispersed particles.

This activity guide features three related explorations to help learners ages 3-6 investigate shadows via the following science concepts: A shadow is made when an object blocks the light; you can chan

In this activity, learners build inexpensive kaleidoscopes using transparency paper and foil (instead of mirrors).

By making models of light waves with paper, learners can understand why different colors appear in bubbles.

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.

In this activity, learners explore how and why rainbows form by creating rainbows in a variety of ways using simple materials. Learners create rainbows indoors and outdoors.