Making a Pinhole Camera

Students are introduced to the basic straight line pattern of travel that light takes. A cereal box and wax paper provide the pinhole camera that captures the light's inverted image. Shifting this pattern provides additional challenges.

Step aside, fancy glasses... it's time to create a solar eclipse viewing camera of your own using nothing more than a milk carton. 

What happens to light as it passes through a hole? This is the main question centered around the designing of a solar eclipse dynamic art piece that uses a solar eclipse and paper to create a pinhole projection of the art.

Students make a pinhole camera and see the effects that light travelling in straight lines have on images.

Students make a pinhole camera and see the effects of light travelling in straight lines have on images.

Learners discuss light and how it travels in straight lines, create pinhole cameras with cylindrical boxes and wax paper, and experiment with moving camera in different directions to see how it changes images.

Students explore light.  For this light wave physics lesson, students construct periscopes, kaleidoscopes, color wheels, and pinhole cameras.  Students observe and record characteristics of light demonstrated through the use of these tools.