Content Videos (Lectures and animations to supplement lessons):

• Refraction
  • Definition
  • Refraction of Light
  • Refraction of Light Through a Glass Slab
  • What is a prism?
  • Refraction Through a Prism
  • The Laws of Refraction
  • Refraction Activity
  • Effects of Refraction
• Snell’s Law
  • Verification of Snell’s Law
  • Real/Apparent Depth
  • Refractive Index of Glass by Apparent Depth Method
• Dispersion of White Light
  • Light & Color
  • Recombination of the Dispersed White Light
  • Effects of Dispersion
• Total Internal Reflection
  • Definition
  • Physics
  • Effects
• Applications
  • Periscope
  • Optical Fibre

Interactives (Online activities for student interaction & practice with content):

• Bending Light Simulation (students explore bending of light between two media with different indices of refraction. See how changing from air to water to glass changes the bending angle. Play with prisms of different shapes and make rainbows)
• Refraction (Turn on your laser and shine it through air at the surface of water. Change the laser’s angle and observe the effect. Swap out the water and replace it with oil or glass or diamond or … . Switch to the other side of the boundary and observe the effect of laser light traveling from water to air. There’s no end to what you can try with this Interactive … without an expensive laser, without getting wet, and without having to buy any diamonds)
• Refraction of Light Demonstration (In this interactive activity featuring videos adapted from the Rutgers PAER Group, observe the refraction of light as it passes through transparent objects. In the first example, when a convex lens is placed in the path of parallel beams of light, the beams converge after passing through the lens. In the second example, when a concave lens is placed in the path of parallel beams of light, the beams diverge after passing through the lens. In the third example, when a rectangular piece of glass is placed in the path of a beam of light, the light bends at the boundary both into and out of the glass)
• Optics Bench: Lenses (Every child has had the fascinating experience of looking through a magnifying glass. Many of us have taken the magnifying glass and looked at far away objects only to notice that the magnifying effect no longer occurs. So what exactly is going on with the lens of a magnifying glass? In this Interactive, learners will explore a converging lens. A candle can be dragged to varying locations and the characteristics of the image can be quickly observed)
• Snell’s Law
  • Least Time Principle (If you were a lifeguard at the beach and you saw a struggling swimmer in the water, it would be your objective to reach the swimmer in the least amount of time. But since you can run faster on the sand than you can swim in the water, you can’t run directly at the swimmer. You can reduce your time by running a longer distance on the sand and swimming a shorter distance in the water. Your path to the swimmer will be a bent path – bent at the point where you transition from running to swimming. In this Interactive, learners will determine the entry point into the water that results in the least time. Then their analysis of the data will relate principle of least time to Snell’s law of refraction. Now go save that swimmer … in the least amount of time)
• Dispersion of White Light (A demonstration of the dispersion of white light into colored light. The demonstration also allows the white light to be filtered prior to entering the prism)
• Total Internal Reflection & its Effect: Virtual Experiment (students are challenged to study the refraction of laser beam through a glass block. A steerable protractor allows angles to be measured. When the critical angle is exceeded, total internal reflection occurs)

Games (Online games for students to apply & test their content knowledge):

• Alien Attack! (Which evil alien tried to blow up the world? Investigate the science of light by questioning suspects Kam, Ray, Shady & Flek about light sources and rays, reflection & angles; all in order to save the Earth from destruction!)
• Snell’s Shooting Game (You are in the room on right (as seen from above), and your mission is to hit the target located in the left room using a laser which emits a short laser pulse of high energy. Between the rooms the wall is opaque, but there is a transparent glass (n = 1.5) cylindrical with 1 meter diameter (Seen as a circle in the picture). Students must use Snell’s law to figure out how they can hit the target!)
• Refraction ( In Refraction, players split laser beams in order to power spaceships containing various animals who have gotten stuck in space. The laser light that powers these ships must bent and split to various measurements, and the player is given several pieces of equipment that split and reflect the laser light to reach the animals and satisfy these requirements)
• Rainbow Mechanic (students guide the beam to create a gorgeous spectrum of light)
• Tower of Babel (After the devil-cat steals Britney from your arms, you, Cocoa the cat must save her from the clutches of evil with your knowledge of reflection and refraction. Each level has a number of enemies that you must kill by directing the laser beams directly at them; to do this you must your light-manipulating tools: mirrors, refractors, prisms, splitters, etc. to bend the light towards them. Challenging!)