3 Important Properties of Lenses
1 – They FOCUS
2 – They BEND light
3 – They MAGNIFY and DEMAGNIFY
Station 1 – Bending Light
1) Using one (1) cylinder can you make the light do this?
2) Can you do this with one (1) cylinder? Can you do it with more?
3) What about this?
4) The FOCAL LENGTH of a lens is very important. Can you measure it?
Station 2 – Fresnel Lens
Lens #1) Does this Fresnel lens MAGNIFY or DEMAGNIFY?
Lens #2) Does this Fresnel lens MAGNIFY or DEMAGNIFY?
Lens #3) This lens is a little different from the others. Why does it look strange?
(Hint – Are the smallest rings at the center of the sheet?)
Lens #4) This lens is very different from the others. Hold it about 1 inch from a piece of
paper with writing on it. What do you see?
Does this lens remind you of anything you might see in nature?
Hint – This is a picture of the eye of a house fly:
Station #3 – Various Lenses
Does this kind of lens MAGNIFY or DEMAGNIFY?
Does this kind of lens MAGNIFY or DEMAGNIFY?
Which kind of lens magnifies (or demagnifies) MORE?
Which kind of lens magnifies (or demagnifies) MORE?
Station 4 – Microscopes!
Try this with one of the microscope lenses:
When you experiment with the INTEL QX3 microscope, what do you see when you
change the MAGNIFICATION?
Why do you have to adjust the blue knob on the side of the microscope?
(Hint – this knob is called focus).
Station 5 – Bending Light with
Water
What happens to the laser beam when it hits the water?
Can you set this up so that the light does NOT BEND at the water surface?
What ANGLE does this happen at?
What happens in the tank with oil on top of the water?
Can you set this up again so that the light does NOT BEND at the oil surface?
What about at the oil-water surface?