Re: Physics of optics

Depending upon class size and all that there are many class-long activities
to demonstrate optical properties and lenses and such.
 A very few short term projects:
--making a water lens/water mirror
--fresel lens
--splitting white light
--spherical reflection
--diffraction patterns
--pinhole enlarger

Also it may be fun and useful in explaining lenses by looking at the
properties of vision, some of which may be approached via afterimage and
opitcal illusion demonstrations (as well as a number of very attractive and
entertaining (and old) Victorian opitcal parlour games).

Longer, multi-class projects of course could be making a micro or telescope;
and then of course investigating inexpensive cameras and their workings and
then making pinhole cameras of them. The camera obscura would be a nice
thing to make--also turning the classroom into a pinhole camera would be
cool.

Caveat--my only teaching experience with optics has been with grade school
children and pinhole camera construction. The hands-on construction end and
darkroom experience helped considerably--somehow--in helping the kids
understand some of the optics bits. Much more difficult (for me at least)
to explain (at grade school levels) is the chemistry end...

Just a few ideas...
Best,
John Ptak
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeffrey D. Mathias" <jeffrey.d.mathias@att.net>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2005 2:38 PM
Subject: Re: Physics of optics

> Barry Kleider wrote:
>> ...
>> I'm looking for some fun activities I can use to show the properties of
>> lenses. ...
>> Other ideas - either specific activities or of places I might
>> investigate?
>
> Try Edmond Scientific at:
> http://www.edsci.com/
>
> --
> Jeffrey D. Mathias
> http://home.att.net/~jeffrey.d.mathias/
>
Received on Wed Aug 17 13:23:54 2005