Easy Indoor Rainbow Experiments
Children love spotting rainbows, and seeing one gives you an opportunity to discuss the science behind the atmosphere and optics. Since natural rainbows appear only on days when the sun shines through droplets of rain, find ways to make your own. Kids like using markers to draw their own, but with a few simple household items, you can make fun rainbow magic that allows you to experiment with indoor rainbows, day or night.
Rainbow in the Dark
To easily make your own rainbow, you need a small mirror that will fit inside a clear glass or jar. The mirror needs to tilt at a slight angle, so you can place a marble, bead or other object beneath it to create the angle. Next, fill the glass with water, then place it on a table in a dark room or simply hold it. With the lights off, shine a flashlight onto the mirror to create your indoor rainbow. Change the angle of the flashlight and predict whether this will change the location of the rainbow.
This easy but messy rainbow experiment requires a plastic water or sports drink bottle, an old sock, a rubber band, liquid dish soap and liquid food coloring. Begin by removing the bottom of the plastic bottle and place the open end of the sock over the cut end of the bottle. Secure the sock with a rubber band. Next, pour dish soap into a bowl and add a small amount of water to thin the soap. Use the liquid food coloring to create stripes of colors the length of the sock. Once you color the sock, dip it into the dish soap mixture until you cover the whole surface of the sock. Blow into the open end of the plastic bottle, creating a thick rainbow of bubbles.
You can experiment with rainbows using a bowl of milk and a few other items. Fill a cereal bowl with milk halfway and allow it to come to room temperature. Next, add about four drops of different food colors to the bowl of milk. Be careful not to mix the colors unless you want to create a new color. Place one drop of dish soap in the middle of the bowl, and the colors will start to swirl, forming a rainbow. This results from the dish soap separating the milk fats, which pushes and swirls the food coloring.
The Disappearing Rainbow
Kids will enjoy making rainbows, but they also will love making them disappear. Cover a compact disc with a white piece of paper cut to the size of the CD. Use a glue stick to adhere it to the CD. Using the colors red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet to represent the rainbow, fill in seven pie-shaped segments on the paper. Leave a white segment between each color of the rainbow. Use a pen, pencil or other object to poke through the hole of the CD. Spin the CD as hard as you can and the rainbow will disappear.
Kate Beck started writing for online publications in 2005. She worked as a certified ophthalmic technician for 10 years before returning to school to earn a Masters of Fine Arts degree in writing. Beck is currently putting the finishing touches on a novel.