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Light & Color Experiments

Why is the sky blue?

We filled a clear plastic box with water and powdered milk to represent the atmosphere

we placed a flashlight at one of the box

wwe could see the blue light scatter when it went through the "atmosphere"

the blue colors the sky and the rest of the light travels on and appears to be a yellowish color

this is why the sun appears yellow to us and the sky blue

when we looked directly at the light from the end of the box we could only see yellow

the cloudier we made the box with the milk, the more red the "sun" appeared

vision of the "sun"

http://www.exploratorium.edu/snacks/blue_sky.html - more on this experiment

http://www.exploratorium.edu/snacks/glue_stick/index.html similar experiment using glue sticks

How your eye works

image of tv upside down on paper like the lens of your eye and the retina of your eye

how your eye works

Eye on the Image
When the retina receives an image, the image is actually upside down. You can illustrate this point with a simple demonstration. Place a small television directly in front of you and roughly at waist height. Turn on the television, turn off the lights, and stand about 10 feet from the screen. Hold up a magnifying glass to a sheet of white paper. Slowly move the magnifying lens toward and away from the paper until you see a clear, upside-down image of the television, as shown. What is happening is very similar to what goes on in an eye. Light leaves the screen and spreads all over the room. When light rays hit the magnifying glass, the glass acts just like the lens of an eye. It refracts the light rays, bending them together into a single point. At the same time, the glass also inverts (flips upside down) the rays. Then all the points of light from the screen are recombined into a single inverted image on the white paper, just as the things we look at appear on our retina.

Refraction and Focal Point

we shown a flashlight through a wide toothed comb

we then shown that light through a jar of water and saw the focal point that it created

 

learning how to direct solar power with a magnifying glass

trying it out on a small pile of leaves

it works!

attempting to pop popcorn

too direct - only burned a hole in the husk

trying to boil water

roasting...uh...burning a marshmallow

Look Into Infinity

place mirrors so that you can look into infinity

Rods and Cones - Mystery Bird

cut out a red, blue and green bird and glue them to 3 pieces of paper - on a 4th paper draw a birdcage

draw a black eye on one of the birds and then stare at the eye for 20 sec. then look at the cage paper and you will see a mystery bird

http://www.exploratorium.edu/snacks/bird_in_cage.html - more info about this experiment

Eric Carle's book Hello, Red Fox plays with this phenomenon as well.  Check it out!

Magical Colors Made From Black and White

print and cut out the disk from the website listed below

glue the paper disk to a piece of cardboard and attach to the top of a drill - turn on and watch black and white turn to magical colors

http://www.exploratorium.edu/snacks/benhams_disk.html cool

Colors

http://ology.amnh.org/einstein/stufftodo/see_color.html

More Experiments with Light

http://www.exploratorium.edu/snacks/iconlight.html

Color Illusion

This is cool - it's not one of those scary, pop-at-you tricks...try it!

 

Here's one of a rock structure and another of a castle and one more of a mountain .

Here's an Eric Carle book that uses the same black dot concept.  Fun!

More Optical Illusions

                     Mona Lisa                       Pinwheel                     Color Perception          

                

 

Want to see more?  Click here.

Click here to see our dragon illusion - it's so cool!!!

 

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