The PhET project at the University of Colorado creates "fun, interactive, research-based simulations of physical phenomena." This particular one deals with Beer's Law. "The thicker the glass, the darker the brew, the less the light that passes through." Make colorful concentrated and dilute solutions and explore how much light they absorb and transmit using a virtual spectrophotometer! The simulation is also paired with a teachers' guide and related resources from PhET. The simulation is also available in multiple languages.

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.

Biology is designed for multi-semester biology courses for science majors. It is grounded on an evolutionary basis and includes exciting features that highlight careers in the biological sciences and everyday applications of the concepts at hand. To meet the needs of today’s instructors and students, some content has been strategically condensed while maintaining the overall scope and coverage of traditional texts for this course. Instructors can customize the book, adapting it to the approach that works best in their classroom. Biology also includes an innovative art program that incorporates critical thinking and clicker questions to help students understand—and apply—key concepts.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Explain how plants absorb energy from sunlightDescribe short and long wavelengths of lightDescribe how and where photosynthesis takes place within a plant

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Explain how plants absorb energy from sunlightDescribe short and long wavelengths of lightDescribe how and where photosynthesis takes place within a plant

Turn an old CD into a spectroscope to analyze light—you may be surprised by what you see. Try pointing your CD spectroscope at the fluorescent light in your room, sunlit clouds in the sky, even your friend’s colored shirt to reveal the wavelengths of light that mix together to create the color you see!

This lesson introduces the concepts of wavelength and amplitude in transverse waves. In the associated activity, students will use ropes and their bodies to investigate different wavelengths and amplitudes.

Make a whole rainbow by mixing red, green, and blue light. Change the wavelength of a monochromatic beam or filter white light. View the light as a solid beam, or see the individual photons.

In this video, Jonathan explores how animals in the ocean use color, not just for camouflage, but to stand out. Please see the accompanying lesson plan for educational objectives, discussion points and classroom activities.

In this video, David explains how Louis De Broglie got his Nobel Prize for the idea of matter having a wavelength.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Light-responsive proteins have revolutionized our understanding of the brain. By introducing the genes encoding these proteins into neurons and then exciting the cells using lasers – a technique known as optogenetics – individual cells can be rapidly turned on or off, enabling exquisitely sensitive investigations of brain function. But a fundamental limitation of the method is that light doesn’t travel very far through brain tissue, which has hampered the study of more buried – and often vital – structures. Now, researchers at the RIKEN Center for Brain Science have developed a way to extend the reach of optogenetics by nearly an order of magnitude, providing new possibilities for deep-brain stimulation. The team accomplished this using a special type of nanoparticle known as an upconversion nanoparticle, so named for its ability to transform – or “upconvert” – near-infrared light into visible output..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

Students find and calculate the angle that light is transmitted through a holographic diffraction grating using trigonometry. After finding this angle, student teams design and build their own spectrographs, researching and designing a ground- or space-based mission using their creation. At project end, teams present their findings to the class, as if they were making an engineering conference presentation. Student must have completed the associated Building a Fancy Spectrograph activity before attempting this activity.

Students begin by following instructions to connect a Sunfounder Ultrasonic Sensor and an Arduino Microcontroller. Once they have them set up, students calibrate the sensor and practice using it. Students are then given an engineering design problem: to build a product that will use the ultrasonic sensors for a purpose that they all specify. Students will have to work together to design and test their product, and ultimately present it to their classmates.

Students are presented with a hypothetical scenario that delivers the unit's Grand Challenge Question: To apply an understanding of nanoparticles to treat, detect and protect against skin cancer. Towards finding a solution, they begin the research phase by investigating the first research question: What is electromagnetic energy? Students learn about the electromagnetic spectrum, ultraviolet radiation (including UVA, UVB and UVC rays), photon energy, the relationship between wave frequency and energy (c = λν), as well as about the Earth's ozone-layer protection and that nanoparticles are being used for medical applications. The lecture material also includes information on photo energy and the dual particle/wave model of light. Students complete a problem set to calculate frequency and energy.

The electromagnetic spectrum* describes the range of energies associated with different forms of electromagnetic radiation. Electromagnetic radiation travels through space as discrete packets called photons. Photons can transport energy the way particles do, but photons have no mass*. Photons vary in the amount of energy they carry. The energy associated with a photon determines where on the electromagnetic spectrum it falls.

The electron microprobe provides a complete micrometer-scale quantitative chemical analysis of inorganic solids. The method is nondestructive and utilizes characteristic X-rays excited by an electron beam incident on a flat surface of the sample. This course provides an introduction to the theory of X-ray microanalysis through wavelength and energy dispersive spectrometry (WDS and EDS), ZAF matrix correction procedures and scanning electron imaging with back-scattered electron (BSE), secondary electron (SE), X-ray using WDS or EDS (elemental mapping), and cathodoluminescence (CL). Lab sessions involve hands-on use of the JEOL JXA-8200 Superprobe.

Students are introduced to sound energy concepts and how engineers use sound energy. Through hands-on activities and demonstrations, students examine how we know sound exists by listening to and seeing sound waves. They learn to describe sound in terms of its pitch, volume and frequency. They explore how sound waves move through liquids, solids and gases. They also identify the different pitches and frequencies, and create high- and low-pitch sound waves.