Activity 1
Lens Activity: Looking Through Lenses
A lens is a piece of transparent material with at least one curved surface, which refracts, or bends,
light rays coming from an object. Lenses are usually made out of glass or plastic and they have
special characteristics. In the activity that follows you will look at only two kinds of lenses, convex
and concave, and observe their similarities and differences. You will also be testing out what happens
when you use multiple lenses at the same time.
Required Materials
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Science notebook
2 convex & concave lenses
Flashlight
White paper
Activity Directions
1. Look closely at the lenses and answer these questions in your science packet:
How are the lenses shaped?
How are the lenses alike?
How are the lenses different?
2. Look through the lenses at the pages of a book, your hands, a hair, and other things. Draw what you see in
your science packet and label each picture with the type of lens with which you observed the object. Be
sure to answer the following questions:
How does a concave lens make things look?
How does a convex lens make things look?
3. Lenses bend light in different directions. Shine a flashlight through the lenses onto a piece of white paper
and then answer the following questions in your science packet:
In what direction do convex lenses bend light?
In what direction do concave lenses bend light?
4. Shine the flashlight through different combinations of lenses: two convex lenses, two concave lenses, one
concave and one convex lens. Draw pictures of what you see in your science packet and answer these
questions:
What happens when you use multiple lenses at the same time?
Can you use two different lenses to make things far away appear closer?
Activity 2
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Angles of Reflection
Have you ever wondered why you can see your face in a mirror? This occurs because mirrors are very
smooth and shiny. Light bounces, or reflects, off of the smooth and shiny surface of mirrors. When
you see your face in a mirror you are seeing light from your face reflecting off of the mirror.
The way light bounces off mirrors is very much like the way a ball bounces against a hard surface. You can throw
a ball straight down, and it will bounce straight back at you. Or, you can bounce a ball at an angle and it will
bounce off the floor at the same angle away from you. Light reflects the same way off of a mirror. In other words,
light reflects from a mirror at the same angle as it arrives.
Required Materials
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Science packet
4 x 6-inch mirror
Masking tape
Paper
Activity Directions
1. You need to work with a partner to do this activity. Find a place where there is a wall with plenty of space
around it. Attach the mirror at eye level on a wall with masking tape. Cover the mirror with a piece of
paper.
2. Now, both you and your partner should try to guess where you both need to stand to see each other's
reflection on the mirror. When you both agree on the places, mark them on the floor with 6-inch pieces of
masking tape.
3. Remove the paper from the mirror. Stand at your chosen place to determine if you can see each other in
the mirror.
4. If you can't see each other, try different places until you can. Mark the places that work with the 6-inch
pieces of masking tape.
5. Next, place long pieces of masking tape on the floor from the center of your 6-inch place markers to the
wall straight under the center of the mirror. These should be straight lines.
6. Look at the angles made by the taped lines on the floor and the wall to see if they are the same size.
Remember that light bounces off a mirror at the same angle that it arrives. Therefore, when the light from
your face travels to the mirror on the wall, it should bounce off the mirror at the same angle to the eyes of
your partner.
7. In your science packet, write a description of what you did in this activity. Include a diagram with lines
showing how light reflects off a mirror.
Activity 3
Fish Tank Optics:
Learning How Light Travels
Introduction
How does light travel? What happens when light hits or moves through different objects? Today, we will learn
about light waves and see how they travel. Light moves in waves, which can bounce off of or go through
materials.
Activities
1. Have students shine flashlight beam through their hands. We can see that flesh and bone won't allow light
to pass through. Hand turns pink—evidence that light is bouncing off. This bouncing of light off a surface
is called reflection. Write your observations in your packet.
2. Shine flashlight beam through fish tank of water. Hold dark paper at outside end of tank to see evidence
that light is coming through the tank. Look down into the water and see reflection in it. Experiment with
different sizes of beams and flashlights and document what you see. Write your observations in your
packet.
3. Put can or other object in the middle of the tank. Shine light through tank and observe what happens when
beam passes through water and hits object. Do light waves pass through the object or bounce (reflect) off
of it? Write your observations in your packet.
4. Next, place dark sheets of paper along the sides and end of the tank. Focus a beam on the far end of the
tank and observe how light shining in at one end hits mostly, but not entirely, on the other end. Refraction
causes some light waves to bend and pass through the side walls. Write your observations in your packet.
5. Shine light through air in tank. Observe that light has no reflection or refraction because the medium is
just “air,” so there is no material to reflect or refract the beams. Write your observations in your packet.
Activity 4
Did You See The Light?
At this center you will place different objects up to a light and decide whether the object is transparent,
translucent, or opaque. If it is transparent then the light will pass through it and a clear image will form. If
an object is translucent, it will allow some of the light to come through, but most of the light is scattered.
Thus, you can see an object through translucent material, but it will not be clear. In an opaque material, all
the light is blocked so that you will not be able to see through it.
1. As you hold the objects provided by your teacher up to the light, record your findings in a chart.
For example, if you held a piece of glass up to the light, you could see through it and what you
would see would be clear. You would write the word "YES" in the transparent column.
2. Answer the following questions about transparent, translucent, and opaque materials in your
science packet.
What type of material would you want a computer screen to be made of: translucent,
transparent, or opaque? Explain your choice.
Why would you want a flashlight bulb to be made of a transparent material?
Why would you want your sunglasses to be made of a translucent material?
What type of object, a transparent, translucent, or opaque one, would you use to make a
shadow?
Activity 5
Spinning Colors
At this center you will be creating a spinning disk that will produce different colors by adding colors
together and "fooling" your eyes.
1. Use the compass to draw a circle 8 centimeters in diameter on the blank side of each of the two 3 x
5 index cards.
2. Divide each circle through the center into 8 equal wedges. On the first circle use the red and blue
markers. Color every other section red and blue.
3. On the second circle use the yellow and green markers to color every other section yellow and
green.
4. Cut out each of the circles. Push a pencil point through the center of the red and blue circle, and
take another pencil and push the point through the center of the yellow and green circle with the
colored side facing the pencil's eraser. For better balance, keep the disk down near the point end of
the pencil. Put the point of the pencil on the floor and spin it like a top. After the experiment
record your observations in your packet.
What color does the disk appear to be on the circle that you colored red and blue? Why
do you think that this is so?
What color does the disk appear to be on the circle that you colored yellow and green?
Why do you think that this is so?
How Do Colors Mix?
1. Carefully cut a disk with a diameter of about 10 cm out of a piece of sturdy white cardboard. Divide
the disk into three equal-size segments. Use colored pencils to color one segment red, the next green, and
the third blue.
2. Carefully punch two holes, about 2 cm apart, on opposite sides of the center of the disk.
3. Thread a string about 1 m long through the holes. Tie the ends of the string together so that the string
forms a loop that passes through both holes.
4. With equal lengths of string on each side of the disk, turn the disk so that you are winding up the
string. Predict what color(s) you will see if the disk spins fast.
5. Spin the disk by pulling and relaxing the string.
Answer the following question in your packet: What color do you see as the wheel spins fast? Was your
prediction correct?
Activity 6
Bending Light
At this center you will work with a partner to observe how light bends or refracts to form an image.
1. Place a penny at the bottom of an opaque cup. You may want to use tape to secure the penny to the
center of the cup.
2. Have your partner slowly slide the cup away from you until you can no longer see the penny. Do
not move. Stay in this position until your partner has completed Step 3 below.
3. Without disturbing the penny, have your partner slowly pour water into the cup until you can see
the penny again. Reverse jobs and repeat the experiment. Record the answers to the following
questions in your packet.
What did you observe?
Can you explain how this is possible?
4. In your science packet, draw the path that light takes from the penny to your eye after the water
was added. You may use arrows to show what happens to the light.
Activity 7
Using Bubbles to Learn about Light Interference
Concepts:
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Light travels in waves.
Sometimes, two or more waves join together.
Interference is the addition, or coming together, of several waves.
Constructive Interference happens when two or more waves come together to form a larger and stronger
wave, matching their crests and troughs.
Materials:
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7.
Soap solution (1 part dish soap, 10 parts water)
Plastic straw
4 x 4 inch piece of a black plastic bag
4 x 8-1/2 inch strip of white paper
Scotch tape
Plastic plate (one with sections, or separate food compartments)
Water
Safety and Precautions:
Soap solution may cause irritation if it gets into eyes. Rinse eyes with cool water.
DO NOT SUCK ON THE STRAW!
Procedures and Activities
Activity
1. Pass out to each student a plastic plate, straw, a piece of black plastic, and a piece of paper.
2. With some water, wet the plate and stick the black plastic to it. Pour soap solution in a pan (about a
quarter-inch or more).
3. Instruct students to dip straw in soap solution, enough to blow a bubble. Have students blow bubble onto
black plastic piece.
4. Have students observe bubble, looking at the colored fringes. The white strip of paper can be bent around
the bubble to better see the fringes. We call this making a “bubble home.”
5. Keep making bubbles. Watch the color patterns on the bubble. The colors will slowly go around the
bubble and form rings, then a black dot will form in the middle of the bubble and it will pop.
6. Ask the students:
a) Do you see the fringes? What do they look like?
b) Why do you think there are many colors? What makes the dark bands?
c) Can you see evidence of constructive interference? Destructive interference?
d) What are the fringes doing?
e) What determines what the fringes look like?
f) What happens when the bubble gets old (before it pops)?
g) Do you think this interference is useful for anything?
7. As students experiment, share that the colors we see on the bubble are the reflection of white light shining
on the bubble film. White light has many colors—each color has a different wavelength.
8. If the crests of two sets of waves meet, the colors will intensify.
9. As a bubble film thins out, the colors cancel each other out until all we see is a black dot in the middle of
the bubble.
Light Packet
Name: _______________
Period: __________
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