Light

Did you know light can decrease visibility? Light pollution absolutely makes it more difficult to see stars. Scholars build a simple magnitude reader to determine the magnitude of stars. They use these data to estimate the impact of...

Explore the behavior of light with different materials. Collaborative groups determine whether certain materials absorb, reflect, diffract, or transmit light waves. They then measure the angle of incidence and angle of reflection.

Any work with light, lenses, lasers, or mirrors is called optical engineering. Optical engineers bend and bounce light to make it useful for humans. Examples are telescopes, invisibility, nanomedicine, and solar energy. This...

An illuminating activity demonstrates how interference of light waves creates a pattern. Using Plexiglas™ and construction paper, participants see rainbows appear as they twist or press against the plastic plates. After the activity, you...

Does light affect molecules or does it go right through them? The simulation explores four different types of light: microwave, infrared, visible, and ultraviolet. Scholars alter the energy level of each as it is aimed at seven different...

Lights, shadows, action, and inquiry await your artistic scientists. They explore the way light travels, absorbs, reflects, and transmits through shadow play. They create folktale-inspired shadow puppets, explore the science of light,...

Different colors of the spectrum travel at different speeds through media, causing them to refract at different angles—which allows humans to see their colors. Through a simulation, pupils see how air, water, and other media bend light....

Four modules are a part of this stellar lesson plan. Space scientists view the electromagnetic spectrum, they generate waves on a computer screen in order to measure frequency and wavelength, discover how light is related to temperature,...

We really only see objects that emit light, either on their own or by reflecting light from another source. Past misconceptions of light are illustrated, and current understandings of light illuminated. This could be used as an...

Infrared light is described as a light frequency we are unable to see. This clip shows how infrared works to send an "invisible" signal to turn on the TV. This clip doesn't explain why we can't see infrared but it does raise some...