Refraction of light is an exciting topic to discuss with the young ones and there are so many experiments to practically engage their minds!
Here’s an easy activity to explore this phenomenon.
What you need:
– A glass beaker
– Water
– Colorful, patterned sheets
– Markers
Steps:
1.Take a sheet and draw arrows or other objects, pointing in opposite directions
2.Fill up a beaker with water and move the marked sheet of paper behind it.
Observe what happens. Repeat the same with patterned sheets of paper.
The arrows will appear to be pointing in the same direction and the patterns will appear bent.
When light travels from air into water, it slows down, causing it to change in direction slightly. This change of direction is called refraction.
During this experiment, the light traveled from the image through the air, then through the beaker into the water, and finally out of the glass beaker and into the air once more before it reached our eyes. This is why the image appears bent.
In case of the objects, such as the arrows that seem to have changed their directions, the light bends once when it travels through the glass beaker into the water, and then it bends again when it travels out of the glass beaker and into the air. It looks like the images have been flipped!
What a creative, yet simple way to make science interactive, isn’t it?
