THE SCIENCE LAB

Make & Do Activity Kit

Bending light
Light rays travel in straight lines until they hit something. Sometimes when it hits certain materials the light is bent. Explore refraction and magnification in this simple experiment.

Time: 10 min + Difficulty: Hints: To learn the most from this

experiment explore from every angle!
the bowl on a table 1. Place and fill it with water until it reaches 2cm from the top.

down and watch 2. Crouch through the side of the bowl as you lower the ruler straight down into the water. In what way has the ruler changed? as you move the 3. Watch ruler around in the water.
a coin water

What you will need:

a glass bowl a ruler

Try viewing it from different angles. If the bowl is lifted it can be viewed from below. different viewpoints the 4. At ruler will appear to bend, expand, shrink or even appear to become 2 rulers. Can you see any other results? the same experiment 5. Try with a coin. Drop it to the bottom of the bowl. Find the viewpoint where it disappears. Now find where it appears to be 2 coins. the experiment with 6. Try other (waterproof!) objects from around the house.

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THE SCIENCE LAB

Make & Do Activity Kit

Bending light

Page 2

Recording your results:

Use this space to do drawings of the effects you have noticed while doing this experiment.

Whats going on?

Refraction
Light can play tricks on your eyes. The ruler looks like it has been bent where it enters the water. This is caused by refraction. Refraction occurs because light travels at different speeds in different materials. Light travels more slowly through water than it does through air. As light enters the water it slows down and changes direction slightly. When it leaves the container it speeds up again. The coin appears to be larger when it is lying at the bottom of the bowl. This is also an effect of refracted light. An object under water is magnified. Magnification Magnification is the process of enlarging something only in appearance, not in actual size, as an optical illusion.

What else can I do?

Look at a page of a book or newspaper through the bowl of water. You will notice that the print appears larger. This is because the light passing through the water is bending the image and actually making it closer to our eyes! The object is being magnified.

500 Harris st. Ultimo Creative Commons Licence for is use of this workthe Creative 500 Harris St Ultimo Tel: 02 6217 0111 This work licensed under PO PO Box K346 Haymarket NSW 1238 Commons Attribution-NonCommercialBox K346 Haymarket NSW 1238 http://play.powerhousemuseum.com This work is licensed under a Creative Commons AttributionAustralia ShareAlike 2.5 License. Australia Tel: 02 9217 0111 NonCommercial 3.0 Australia Licence (CC BY-NC 3.0 AU) http://play.powerhousemuseum.com http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/au/