Time to Decorate Your Christmas Tree

Stick some stars and Christmas balls onto your tree and see them magically change color.

Items required:

• Glue

• Scissors

• Pieces of cardboard or toilet paper rolls

• Colored Cellophane wrapping sheets (candy wrappers)

• Tape

• Picture of a Christmas Tree

• Colorful stickers of stars and Christmas balls

Steps:

• Cut the cardboard pieces into the shape of magnifying glasses, making sure there is a see through hole in the middle. If you have toilet paper rolls, you are good as they are.

• Cut out different colored wrapping sheets and stick each one onto the cardboard, covering the see through hole.

• Cut out the decorations from Appendix I, found at the back of the book.

• Stick them onto the Christmas tree to dazzle it.

• Now, observe how the decorations change color when viewed through the different colored wrapping sheets!

  
  

Why do the decorations change color?

When you look through a red sheet, you are allowing mostly red light to pass through it. A blue colored star used in the decoration emits mostly blue light. Since the red sheet blocks most of the blue light, the blue star appears to have a different color when viewed through it. On the contrary, a white colored star emits all the colors of a rainbow. So, the white star appears to have the color of the sheet through which it is viewed.

What happens when you make a binocular and stick one color on each side and view through it? Green on one side and red on the other? Perhaps, you might see the stars and balls as raised pictures, in 3 dimensions?