Speed of Light in Air: 299000 Km per Second Speed of Light in Water: 225000 Km per Second

Bend a Straw with Your Eyes

Using the power of your eyes, bend a straw sitting in half a glass of water without even touching it! It sounds like magic but it's really another amazing scientific principle at work.

What you'll need:

A glass half filled with water A straw 2 eyes (preferably yours)

Instructions: 1. Look at the straw from the top and bottom of the glass. 2. Look at the straw from the side of the glass, focus on the point where the straw enters the water, what is strange about what you see?

What's happening? Our eyes are using light to see various objects all the time, but when this light travels through different mediums (such as water & air) it changes direction slightly. Light refracts (or bends) when it passes from water to air. The straw looks bent because you are seeing the bottom part through the water and air but the top part through the air only.

Create Your Own Rainbow

What You Need

A shallow pan Water A flashlight or sunlight A white surface or piece of paper A mirror

What to Do

Fill the shallow pan about half way full with water. Place the mirror in the water at an angle. Shine the light into the water where the mirror is under water (or, using the sunlight, bring the pan and mirror outside so the sun can shine on the mirror underwater) Hold the white paper above the mirror; adjust the angle until you see the rainbow appear!

What's Going On?

This demo and the rainbows that appear in the sky share the same principles: refraction & reflection. Weve heard about refraction before this is the concept of how light bends when it passes through different mediums, like glass or water. Refraction can even make arrows appear to reverse directions when viewed through a glass of water!

When you shine the white light of your flashlight (or the white light coming from the sun) into the water, the light bends. But white light isnt just one color; instead, its a combination of all the visible colors. So when white light bends, all of its components (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and Violet light) also bend. Each of these colors bends at a different angle because each color travels at a different speed inside water or glass. When you reflect the light back out of the water using the mirror, youre reflecting the white light that has been broken up (from refraction) into the full rainbow of colors, and a rainbow appears!

Apply It
When a rainbow forms in the sky, the same principle applies. Many little water droplets refract the suns light. The angle at which we view these water droplets determines which color we see from them.

Want another cool and easy way to make a rainbow?

Grab a CD or DVD and a flashlight. Shine the light onto the DVD. A rainbow will appear. {You may not even need the flashlight. Overhead light may be enough to see the rainbow.}

The Science Behind It

The light from the flashlight (white light) contains all the different colors of light (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple {or Indigo and Violet if you prefer}). When you shine the light through the water or onto the DVD, it refracts (bends) and splits into the different colors. This is because the different colors (wavelengths) of light behave slightly differently as they travel through the water and glass.

Make Some Noise

Heres a quick and easy science experiment that helps to add a visual element to the science of sound. What causes sound?

What You Need:

Empty bowl Rubber band Plastic wrap Colored sugar crystals

What You Do:

1. Have your third grader cut a piece of plastic wrap big enough to cover the top of the bowl. 2. Have him put the rubber band over the plastic and around the top of the bowl to hold the plastic in place. Make sure the plastic wrap is held tight, and isnt sagging. 3. Next, sprinkle a small pinch of sugar crystals in the center of the plastic. 4. Now, have him get down close to the cup, and say his name aloud. Watch the sugar crystals. Ask him to describe what he saw happening.(The sugar crystals look like theyre on a trampoline! They're moving!) 5. Ask him to try to explain what is happening. If he offers his breath as an explanation for the sugar moving, have him try the experiment again, only this time he should hum instead of talk, and be careful not to breathe on the sugar. Do they still move? 6. Ask your third grader to think of ways of altering his voice to repeat this test. (eg: louder, softer, singing voice, speaking voice, high pitch, low pitch, whisper, etc.) 7. For fun, try making other sounds and testing the effects of the vibrations. Try banging on a pot. Try stretching a rubber band across the ends of your fingers, and then give a pluck. Try making a clucking sound with your tongue. Observe the sugar. What happens?

Explanation: Sound is created by vibrations. Have your child put his hand on his throat to feel the vibrations when he talks. These vibrations caused the plastic to vibrate, too, which made the sugar move.

Acoustic Science Sound Absorption and Reflection

What is sound and how does it work? What is sound? Sound is Energy. An energy that is caused by something moving backwards and forward like the vibration on a guitars string. Sound reflection For Science Sparks, we explored what happened to sound in different environments have you ever been in a room with nothing in it? Does it sound echo-y? What is going on? A smooth flat surface such a brick, metal or wood, reflects sound it makes it bounce and come back straight at us. Making it often sound louder (as we have lots of sound waves heading our way) and sometimes echo-y (depending on how large the room is and how long it takes for the sound to come back to us). This doesnt happen in a room that has a sofa, carpet and curtains the soft furnishings are absorbing the sound. The Experiment We can test this with our toy guitar! We did three things and guessed what the sound would be like: 1) our fingers only 2) the container and elastic bands 3) the container, bands, stuffed with a tea towel.

Fingers

We have an elastic band on its own we can hear it, but we have to listen really closely. It also sounds deeper. The sound is sent in all directions and lost in the large room we are in. Container

We have our empty container with the strings. The sound is much louder and clear. As expected you can really hear the different notes clearly. The container stuffed

He stuffed a tea towel into the container assuming it would absorb most of the sound. It DID sound a tiny bit quieter, but not as much as expected. I suspect that this is because our strings are wrapped all around the container and that it is still reflecting a sufficient amount of noise energy. Yes, some is absorbed, but we would have to stuff it with more to make more of a difference. This is the fun of science thinking about what you expect, observing what is happening and discussing results and finding explanations.

Making Music with Water

Have you ever tried making music with glasses or bottles filled with water? I bet you favourite band hasn't. Experiment with your own special sounds by turning glasses of water into instruments, make some cool music and find out how it works.

What you'll need:

5 or more drinking glasses or glass bottles Water Wooden stick such as a pencil

Instructions: 1. Line the glasses up next to each other and fill them with different amounts of water. The first should have just a little water while the last should almost full, the ones in between should have slightly more than the last. 2. Hit the glass with the least amount of water and observe the sound, then hit the glass with the most water, which makes the higher sound? 3. Hit the other glasses and see what noise they make, see if you can get a tune going by hitting the glasses in a certain order.

What's happening? Each of the glasses will have a different tone when hit with the pencil, the glass with the most water will have the lowest tone while the glass with the least water will have the highest. Small vibrations are made when you hit the glass, this creates sound waves which travel through the water. More water means slower vibrations and a deeper tone.