Make a Rainbow at Home

Materials you'll need

• Large bowl
• Water
• Small mirror
• White board or large piece of white cardboard

 

Step-by-step tutorial

Step 1: Head outside on a sunny day and set your bowl on a flat surface in direct sunlight.

Step 2: Fill the bowl with water.

Step 3: Place the mirror into the bowl, leaning it against the side at an angle so part of it is submerged.

Step 4: Tilt and adjust the mirror until it catches the sunlight and reflects it upward.

Step 5: Hold the white board in the path of the reflected light and move it around until a rainbow appears on the surface!

Learn more

Sunlight looks white, but it's actually a mix of all the colors of the rainbow blended together. When sunlight passes through the water and strikes the mirror, the water acts like a prism — it bends, or refracts, the light. Because each color has a slightly different wavelength, each one bends at a slightly different angle, spreading them apart. This spreading is called dispersion. The mirror bounces all those separated colors back out and onto your white board, revealing the full rainbow spectrum!