Our final challenge for our DIY Explorers to earn their astronomer badge was to build a spectroscope! There are lots of different ways to do this, and the DIY site has a HowCast linked to show you how to make your own. I was looking for a simpler design that would require less materials, and I came across this cereal box design that only needed a few household items. |
To make your own, you will need:
A cereal box (or similar)
A CD
A box cutter or scissors
Tape
Aluminum Foil
Protractor (to measure the angle of the cut for the CD)
I excerpted some text from this document to help the kids understand how light and colors work and a little bit about spectra.
Here is my excerpted document and where I played the following videos for the kids.
Our first video was Bill Nye the Science Guy. He explains how white light can be broken down into pure colors, and why our eyes perceive certain colors.
A cereal box (or similar)
A CD
A box cutter or scissors
Tape
Aluminum Foil
Protractor (to measure the angle of the cut for the CD)
I excerpted some text from this document to help the kids understand how light and colors work and a little bit about spectra.
Here is my excerpted document and where I played the following videos for the kids.
Our first video was Bill Nye the Science Guy. He explains how white light can be broken down into pure colors, and why our eyes perceive certain colors.
Then we learned a little more about different kinds of light that may be seen with the spectrometers in this short video.
Our last video showed how we would be assembling the cereal box spectrometer and why it works. It also explains how scientists use spectrometers to see what materials the stars, comets, etc. are made of in galaxies far, far away.
And so we dug in and made our own using the above video as a guide.
Figuring out how to use the protractors so that the CD would be angled the right direction was probably the hardest part. Some of the kids found that they needed to make the CD end of their spectrometers darker by covering that section of the box with more aluminum foil.
Figuring out how to use the protractors so that the CD would be angled the right direction was probably the hardest part. Some of the kids found that they needed to make the CD end of their spectrometers darker by covering that section of the box with more aluminum foil.
Here are some additional resources if you want to dig into this some more:
This document contains two alternate designs and lesson information about spectoscopes, a chart for drawing the spectra the kids see and a ruler for measuring wavelengths are also included.
A virtual lab and lots of great explanation and examples of light spectra using the spectrascope.
Another neat virtual lab (better for older students)
An introduction to spectrascopy and astronomy
Recommended if you have Netflix
Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey Season 1 Episode 5 - Hiding in the Light
Episode Recap
Episode worksheet
This document contains two alternate designs and lesson information about spectoscopes, a chart for drawing the spectra the kids see and a ruler for measuring wavelengths are also included.
A virtual lab and lots of great explanation and examples of light spectra using the spectrascope.
Another neat virtual lab (better for older students)
An introduction to spectrascopy and astronomy
Recommended if you have Netflix
Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey Season 1 Episode 5 - Hiding in the Light
Episode Recap
Episode worksheet