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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.

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

Drugs, Risks and the Nervous System
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In this activity, learners estimate risks associated with different events and compare their estimates to the real possibilities.

Blind Spot
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In this activity, learners conduct a simple test to find their blind spot.

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.

Your Father's Nose
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In this fun optics activity, learners explore principles of light, reflection (mirrors), and perception. Learners work in pairs and sit on opposite sides of a "two-way" mirror.

Mirror-Tracing
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This mirror-tracing activity related to proprioception is a visual and motor test that involves learning a new motor skill.

Pinhole Magnifier
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In this activity related to light and perception, learners use a pinhole in an index card as a magnifying glass to help their eye focus on a nearby object.

Sliding Gray Step
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How can you make one shade of gray look like two? By putting it against two different color backgrounds! This activity allows learners to perform this sleight of hand very easily.

Moiré Patterns
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In this activity about light and perception, learners create and observe moire patterns.

Bird in the Cage
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In this activity about afterimages, learners explore what happens when receptor cells called cones in your eye's retina get tired.

Benham’s Disk
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In this activity (on page 2 of the PDF under GPS: Light and Color Activity), learners will see the illusion of colors produced by a rotating black and white image known as Benham’s Disk.

Colored Shadows
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In this optics activity, learners discover that not all shadows are black. Learners explore human color perception by using colored lights to make additive color mixtures.

Whirling Watcher: Make a Stroboscope
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In this activity, learners make a stroboscope--a spinning disk with slits around the edge that you look through.

Color Contrast
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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.

Gray Step
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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.

Michelle O (formerly Vanna)
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We don't normally view people upside down and so our brains aren't accustomed to it.

Afterimage
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In this activity about light and perception, learners discover how a flash of light can create a lingering image called an "afterimage" on the retina of the eye.

Mirror, Mirror
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In this activity, learners discover that it is difficult to trace a curve by using its reflection in a mirror. Use this activity to discuss how the brain works.

Anti-Gravity Mirror
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In this demonstration, amaze learners by performing simple tricks using mirrors. These tricks take advantage of how a mirror can reflect your right side so it appears to be your left side.