Learn about refraction, reflection, beam scattering, optical density, transmission, and absorption! Students investigate the electromagnetic spectrum by using lenses, mirrors and more as they build several projects including an eye-balloon, pinhole camera, optical kaleidoscope as well as experiments in splitting shadows into a rainbow, going on a black light treasure hunt, getting colors from black and white, investigating chemiluminescence by mixing cold light, and making a beaker totally disappear.

Step 1. Click Here to download your copy of the Ultimate Science Curriculum Light Vol. 1 Student Guidebook. To download the Parent/Teacher Guidebook, Click Here.

Step 2. Watch the videos that go with it below.

Introduction

Greetings and welcome to the study of light. This unit was created by a mechanical engineer, university instructor, airplane pilot, astronomer, robot-builder and real rocket scientist… me! I have the happy opportunity to teach you everything I know about electricity over the next set of lessons. I promise to give you my best stuff so you can take it and run with it… or fly!

To get the most out of these labs, there are really only a couple of things to keep in mind. Since we are all here to have fun and learn something new, this shouldn’t be too hard.

One of the best things you can do as the student is to cultivate your curiosity about things. Why did that move? How did that spin? What’s really going on here?

This unit on light is chock full of demonstrations and experiments for two big reasons. First, they’re fun. But more importantly, the reason we do experiments in science is to hone your observational skills. Science experiments really speak for themselves much better than I can ever put into words or show you on a video. And I’m going to hit you with a lot of these science demonstrations and experiments to help you develop your observing techniques.

Scientists not only learn to observe what’s going on in the experiment, but they also learn how to observe what their experiment is telling them, which is found by looking at your data. It’s not enough to invent some new kind of experiment if you don’t know how it will perform when the conditions change a bit, like on Mars. We’re going to learn how to predict what we think will happen, design experiments that will test this idea, and look over the results we got to figure out where to go from there. Science is a process, it’s a way of thinking, and we’re going to get plenty of practice at it.

Good luck with this unit on the magic of light!

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Lesson #1: Rainbow Shadows

Overview: Imagine you’re a painter. What three colors do you need to make up any color in the universe? (You should be thinking: red, yellow, and blue… and yes, you are right if you’re thinking that the real primary colors are cyan, magenta, and yellow, but some folks still prefer to think of the primary colors as red-yellow-blue… either way, it’s really not important to this experiment which primary set you choose.)

Here’s a trick question – can you make the color “yellow” with only red, green, and blue as your color palette? If you’re a scientist, it’s not a problem. But if you’re an artist, you’re in trouble already. The key is mixing light, not paint.

What to Learn: The three primary colors of light are red, blue, and green. Red and green light mixed together make yellow light. Sunlight can be blocked to make shadows.

Materials

fingernail polish ( red, green, and blue)
3 flashlights
clear tape (NOT translucent)
a white wall (or another large white surface)

Lesson #2: Kaleidoscopes

Overview: In the simplest sense, a kaleidoscope is a tube lined with mirrors. Whether you leave the end open or tape on a bag of beads is up to you, but the main idea is to provide enough of an optical illusion to wow your friends. Kaleidoscopes are an example of using light reflectors, which don’t give off any light, but still bounce light back to your eyes.

The first kaleidoscopes were constructed in 1816 by a scientist while studying polarization (you’ll learn more about polarization in a future lesson). Kaleidoscopes were quickly picked up as an amusement gadget by the public and have stayed with us ever since. Today you will be making your very own kaleidoscope.

What to Learn: Kaleidoscopes are an example of using light reflectors, which don’t give off any light, but still bounce light back to your eyes. Light is reflected from mirrors and other surfaces.

Materials
Mirror Kaleidoscope

tape
4-5 mirrors of the same size
scissors

Mylar Kaleidoscope

Mylar
index card or piece of cardboard
hot glue gun
scissors

Lesson #3: Liquid Prism

Overview: A prism un-mixes light back into its original colors of red, green, and blue. In this experiment, water is our prism. You can make prisms out of glass, plastic, water, oil, or anything else you can think of that allows light to zip through.

What to Learn: Today you’re going to play with splitting apart white light into its primary colors. The color of light striking an object affects how our eyes see it.

Materials

shallow baking dish
mirror
sunlight
index card

You’ll also have one of the following:

plain water
baby oil or mineral oil
water with one tablespoon of salt mixed in
distilled white vinegar
isopropyl rubbing alcohol
clear liquid soap (do not mix with water)

Lesson #4: Lunar Phases

Overview: The Moon appears to change in the sky. One moment it’s a big white circle, and next week it’s shaped like a sideways bike helmet. There’s even a day where it disappears altogether. So what gives?

What to Learn: The sun illuminates half of the Moon all the time. Imagine shining a flashlight on a beach ball. The half that faces the light is lit up. There’s no light on the far side, right? For the Moon, which half is lit up depends on the rotation of the Moon. And which part of the illuminated side we can see depends on where we are when looking at the Moon. Sound complicated? This lab will straighten everything out so it makes sense.

Materials

Ball
Flashlight

Lesson #5: Sky in a Jar

Overview: Have you ever wondered why the sky is blue? Or why the sunset is red? Or what color our sunset would be if we had a blue giant instead of a white star? This lab will answer those questions by showing how light is scattered by the atmosphere.

What to Learn: Particles in the atmosphere determine the color of the planet and the colors we see on its surface. The color of the star also affects the color of the sunset and of the planet. The color of light striking an object affects how our eyes see it.

Materials

glass jar
flashlight
fingernail polish (red, yellow, green, blue)
clear tape
water
dark room
few drops of milk

Lesson #6: Light Tricks

Overview: Today you get to see the science behind the illusion by learning how light striking an object affects how our eyes see it.

What to Learn: Light can be bent when it passes through materials. The amount that the light bends is called the index of refraction. How much light bends depends on the material it’s passing through. This quality is measured for each individual material and is called the optical density. The more dense the substance, the slower the light travels through it, and the more the light bends.

Materials:

penny
glass jar
laser (optional)
flashlight
milk or flour

Lesson #7: Black Light Treasure Hunt

Overview: Ever notice how BRIGHT your white T-shirt looks in direct sun? That’s because mom washed with fluorescent laundry soap (no kidding!). The soap manufacturers put in dyes that glow white under a UV light, which make your clothes appear whiter than they really are.

What to Learn: Light can be absorbed and retransmitted in a different color, depending on how the light strikes the object and the amount of energy the light initially has.

Materials

dark evening inside your house
UV black fluorescent light

Lesson #8: Benhams Disk

Overview: Charles Benham (1895) created a toy top painted with a specific pattern. When you spin the black and white pattern, surprising arcs of color (called “pattern induced flicker colors”) show up; and here’s the odd part: Different people see different colors!

What to Learn: The color of light striking an object affects how our eyes see it. The cones and rods inside our eyes collect images that are transmitted to the brain.

Materials

string (about 3 feet)
Benham’s Disk sheet
8 index cards
glue stick

Lesson #9: Eye Balloon

Overview: In this lab, we are going to make an eyeball model using a balloon. This experiment should give you a better idea of how your eyes work. The way your brain actually sees things is still a mystery, but using the balloon we can get a good working model of how light gets to your brain.

What to Learn: We see objects when light traveling from an object enters our eye.

Materials

biconvex plastic lens
round balloon, white, 9 inches
assistant
votive candle
black marker
book of matches
ruler

Lesson #10: Disappearing Frog

Overview: Your optic nerve can be thought of as a data cord that is plugged in to each eye and connects them to your brain. The area where the nerve connects to the back of your eye creates a blind spot. There are no receptors in this area at all and if something is in that area, you won’t be able to see it. This experiment locates your blind spot.

What to Learn: Cones and rods turn the light that enters the eye into images that are transmitted to the brain. Our eyes have a blind spot where the optic nerve connects to the back of the eye because there are no light receptors there.
Materials

frog and dot printout
meter stick
scrap piece of cardboard

Lesson #11: Pinhole Camera

Overview: Today you get to learn how to make a simple camera using equally simple materials. It’s surprising how sharp the images appear when you do this experiment!

What to Learn: Although this might seem obvious, we see objects when light traveling from an object enters our eye. We can detect light in other ways (as you’ll find out in a later lesson), but the eyes detect only visible light.

Materials

tracing paper
box
razor or scissors
tape
tack
meter stick

Lesson #12: Diffraction

Overview: When light passes through diffraction gratings, it splits (diffracts) the light into several beams traveling at different directions. If youve ever seen the “iridescence” of a soap bubble, an insect shell, or on a pearl, youve seen natures diffraction gratings. What to Learn: Ever play with a prism? When sunlight strikes the prism, it gets split into a rainbow of colors. Prisms un-mix the light into its different wavelengths (which you see as different colors). Diffraction gratings are tiny prisms stacked together. The direction that the beam gets split and diffracted depends on the spacing of the diffraction grating and also the wavelength of the incoming light. Materials

feather
CD or DVD
diffraction grating

Lesson #13: Speed of Light

Overview: One of the biggest challenges with measuring the speed of light is that the photons move fast, too fast to watch with our eyeballs. So instead, we’re going to watch the effects of microwave light and base our measurements on the effects the light has on different kinds of food.

What to Learn: Today you get to think and act like a real scientist by doing an experiment, taking measurements, using math to figure out an answer, and test different materials to see which gives you the best result.

Materials

chocolate bar (extra-large bars work best)
mini marshmallows
chocolate chips
American sliced cheese (the kind that comes individually wrapped)
paper plates
ruler
calculator
pencil and paper
microwave (You’ll only need one of these for the entire group.)

Lesson #14: Mixing Colors

Overview: There are two different sets of primary colors. The three primary colors of light are red, green, and blue. However, the three colors that artists use are red, yellow, and blue. What happens if you mix red, green, and blue paint?

What to Learn: The three primary colors of light are red, blue, and green. Red and green light mixed together make yellow light.

Materials

crayons OR markers
scissors
sharpened wood pencil OR skewer
index cards
cup
drill (optional)

Lesson #15: Mixing Cold Light

Overview: You can demonstrate how the primary colors of light mix together using glow sticks. The glow stick gives off its own light through a chemical reaction called chemiluminescence, which isn’t the same as mixing paint together, since cups of paint are reflecting light, not generating it. It’s like the difference between the sun (which gives off its own light) and the moon (which you see only when sunlight bounces off it to your eyeballs).

What to Learn
Materials

red, green, and blue true-color light sticks (one of each)
disposable test tubes
scissors (with adult help)
gloves
goggles
strainer, such as a coffee filter or bit of cheesecloth

Lesson #16: Refractive Index

Overview: We’re going to bend light to show the magic behind a popular optical illusion by using a cup of liquid as a lens.

What to Learn: When a beam of light hits a different substance, it bends as it travels through the new substance. The speed at which the light travels and the wavelength (color) also changes. The amount of change depends on the index of refraction of the material.

Materials

paper
index card
pencil
scissors
ruler
disposable cups (4)
flashlight
rubbing alcohol
water
baby oil

Lesson #17: Fire and Optics

Because this activity involves fire, make sure you do this on a flame-proof surface and not your dining room table! Good choices are your driveway, cement parking lot, the concrete sidewalk, or a large piece of ceramic tile. Don’t do this experiment in your hand, or you’re in for a hot, nasty surprise.
Overview: Today you get to concentrate light, specifically the heat, from the sun into a very small area. Normally, the sunlight would have filled up the entire area of the lens, but you’re shrinking this down to the size of the dot.

What to Learn: Magnifying lenses, telescopes, and microscopes use this idea to make objects appear different sizes by bending the light. When light passes through a different medium (from air to glass, water, a lens…) it changes speed and usually the angle at which it’s traveling. A prism splits incoming light into a rainbow because the light bends as it moves through the prism. A pair of eyeglasses will bend the light to magnify the image.

Materials:

sunlight glass jar
nail that fits in the jar
12” thread
hair from your head
12” string
12” fishing line
12” yarn
paperclip
magnifying glass
fire extinguisher
adult help

Lesson #18: Simple Microscopes and Telescopes

Overview: Did you know you can create a compound microscope and a refractor telescope using the same materials? Its all in how you use them to bend the light. These two experiments cover the fundamental basics of how two double-convex lenses can be used to make objects appear larger when right up close or farther away.

What to Learn: Things like lenses and mirrors can bend and bounce light to make interesting things, like compound microscopes and reflector telescopes. Telescopes magnify the appearance of some distant objects in the sky, including the moon and the planets. The number of stars that can be seen through telescopes is dramatically greater than can be seen by the unaided eye.

Materials

window
dollar bill
penny
handheld magnifying lenses (2)
ruler

Want More Science Activities?

These videos are samples from my online eScience Learning program. Its a complete science program for K-12. Plus, its self-guiding, so they can do it on their own.

Access over 800 more experiments! Includes our unconditional happiness money-back guarantee! Click here to learn more.

Thank You!

Thanks for the privilege as serving as your coach and guide in your science journey. May these videos bring you much excitement and curiosity in your learning adventure!

~Aurora

Supercharged Science

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