Read Works
Read Works: Light Bounces!
[Free Registration/Login Required] An informational text about light waves and how they travel. A question sheet is available to help students build skills in reading comprehension.
Libre Text
Libre Texts: Physics: The Ray Model of Light
How is light visible? Examine this source to understand what light is and how it travels. Answer discussion questions and practice problems to better recognize light rays and know their functions.
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Investigating Light: A Form of Energy You Can See
Learners will investigate how light is a form of energy that travels as waves away from the source. The basis for this lesson plan is taken from the Houghton Mifflin science curriculum. In the lesson plan experiments, students will...
CK-12 Foundation
Ck 12: Physical Science: Refraction of Light
[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] Discusses refraction of light in matter and how light changes its speed and angle of refraction according to the type of medium it is travelling through.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Pictures Please: Traveling Light
In this activity, students learn that light travels in a straight line from a light source and that ray diagrams help us understand how an image will be created by a lens. In the accompanying activity, students explore the concepts...
Other
National Research Foundation: How Far? How Big? How Many?
Using light as our measuring stick in space, science site provides all types of fun facts using light years and seconds as a reference.
Scholastic
Scholastic: Study Jams! Science: Energy, Light and Sound: Sound
A video and a short quiz on how sound travels in waves, its properties, and how to measure it.
University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota: Refraction of Light
This page is a continuation of a tutorial about light reflection and refraction. It contains a diagram and suggestions on how to derive Snell's Law, which governs the refraction of light in a medium. For background to this derivation,...
Sophia Learning
Sophia: Light Waves: Lesson 4
This lesson will introduce light waves and describe how a particle can travel as a photon or a wave. It is 4 of 4 in the series titled "Light Waves."
Math Science Nucleus
Math/science Nucleus: Night Without Light
This animation discusses light and the properties of electricity in a storybook format. The theme of the story is that a family lost their power, so the animations discuss power and electricity and how it travels into homes.
Synopsys
Synopsys: Optics for Kids: What Is Light?
This site provides a short explanation of light, how it travels, and the speed in which it travels. Many other concepts related to optics can be found on this site as well.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: The Energy of Light
For this introduction to light energy, students learn about reflection and refraction as they learn that light travels in wave form. Through hands-on activities, they see how prisms, magnifying glasses and polarized lenses work. They...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: How Does Color Affect Heating by Absorption of Light?
Light is an example of an electromagnetic wave. Electromagnetic waves can travel through the vacuum of interstellar space. They do not depend on an external medium-unlike a mechanical wave such as a sound wave which must travel through...
Other
Open School Bc: Sound and Light
The Sound and Light interactive investigates these two forms of energy. Students will enjoy exploring how sound and light are created, travel, and can be controlled.
CK-12 Foundation
Ck 12: Plix: Refraction: Light Entering Water
[Free Registration/Login Required] Explore how water distorts the location of objects due to the speed at which light travels through different mediums by moving the red point to adjust the angle of the fisherman's line of vision.
University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota: How Does Light Travel?
Contains a four step procedure to deriving the law of reflection using algebra, Fermat's principle, and calculus (simple derivatives). This is good for an in-class theoretical exercise.
Mocomi & Anibrain Digital Technologies
Mocomi: What Is the Speed of Light?
How fast does light travel? How does its speed change when it travels through different media? Learn how scientists calculate the speed of light and some interesting facts.
Optical Society
Optical Society of America: Optics for Kids: Make a Light Fountain
A simple experiment that demonstrates the concept of total internal reflection, and shows how light can travel around curves and corners, as it does in fiber-optic cables. Accompanied by an explanation of what's happening.
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: Think Like Einstein
This interactive activity from the NOVA Web site challenges you to think like Einstein and understand how time travel might be possible.
Sophia Learning
Sophia: Light Waves: Lesson 1
This lesson will introduce light waves and describe how a particle can travel as a photon or a wave. It is 1 of 4 in the series titled "Light Waves."
Sophia Learning
Sophia: Light Waves: Lesson 3
This lesson will introduce light waves and describe how a particle can travel as a photon or a wave. It is 3 of 4 in the series titled "Light Waves."
ClassFlow
Class Flow: How We See Things
[Free Registration/Login Required] In this unit children learn that mirrors and shiny surfaces alter the direction in which light travels and that when they see objects light enters the eye. Children contrast reflection and shadow...
New York Times
New York Times: Interactive: Travels With Brice Marden
An audio slideshow that walks you through four studios where artist Brice Marden paints. Explains and illustrates the characteristic qualities of Marden's work. An excellent site for demonstrating how place and the quality of light at...
CK-12 Foundation
Ck 12: Physical Science: Refraction
[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] Refraction of light in matter and how light changes its speed and angle of refraction according to the type of medium it is travelling through.