Science Experiment

ILLUMINATION

This is the first annual entry into the Hiebert Family & Friends Science Fair.

The entry is titled "Illumination".

The idea came from a link on Facebook and it follows at the end of the blog. Please view it to see the application of this project. The object is to create illumination or light with simple objects.

We filled a 2 litre pop bottle with clean tap water and added 2 capfuls of household bleach. An empty box served as a "house" and a hole was cut in the top for the bottle to stick through and a hole at the bottom of one side to serve as a "door". A sheet of tinfoil was used to seal out the light around the bottle, around the edge of the hole in the box.





bottle & tinfoil bleach

The bottle of water was inserted through the open lid of the box and raised slightly on a platform made of a tin can, so that about a quarter of the bottle was sticking out the top of the box. The lid was closed and tin foil pushed around the edge so that only the top of the bottle was visible.

Papa Larry with project Grandma Pearl with project

We took the box outside in the sunlight and covered the top of the bottle with a dark cloth and took a picture of what the inside looked like.

Then we uncovered the top of the bottle and allowed the sun to shine on it and took pictures of what the inside of the box looked like with the light or illumination of the sun through the bottle of water looked like.bottle of water

uncovered bottle uncovered - close-up

Then we tried doing the same thing adding figures to the inside of the box, pretending it was their house, covered and then uncovered. (looks like light off and then on).

family in dark house family in illuminated house

It was a fun and easy experiment.

Unfortunately, the box was too small a space to do a true experiment of how much light would enter with only a hole cut in the top, but the bottle of water certainly disperses the light or illuminates over a larger area.

Please visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zMAWztZ6TI&noredirect=1

Hopefully this works for you. If not, go on youtube and type in lite in a litre.

Seems like a great invention for those living where they do not have access to electricity like we have!
Have fun with the science fair and learn lots!