You will need an electric drill and some Velcro™ in order to have this activity available for your class. It is, however, an intriguing display of optical illusion. After watching a spinning disk (provided), viewers look at one of...

Put a new twist on your collection of optical illusion activities. Affix the linked printable spiral to a drill, record player, or some other rotating tool. Have learners stare at the spinning disk for only 15 seconds and then look away....

When your life science class is learning about the eye and how it works, you can add this activity as a demonstration of how the retina holds an afterimage. After staring at a red, green, or blue bird shape, pupils glance at a cage and...

Construct a three-dimensional optical illusion when your class is exploring vision and how the eye and brain work together. Three concave corners are mounted inside of a black box, but as a light is shined upon them, they appear to be...

Visionaries create images out of dots to demonstrate the eye-brain connection. Through this activity, they learn that the brain interprets data collected by the eye into recognizable information. Search online for "Jacques Cousteau in...

Seeing is believing! Or is it? With this simple experiment, young scientists can explore the concept of visual perception. Attach Benham's disk to a rotating appliance such as a hand drill; As it spins, the black lines appear to be...

Fuzzy edges cause an image to fade from view in an activity intended to demonstrate how vision works. 

How can a hand puppet's shadow look like a dog? The lesson explains the science behind shadows, combining paint colors and the colors used in old televisions. Scholars use white, red, blue, and green lights to experiment with colors...

Construct paper tubes and then try out a few optical illusion tricks: See a virtual hole in your own hand Get a grasp of how the eyes combine images Notice that one eye is dominant over the other Reveal how your eyes adjust to...

Concave mirrors and the images they produce are traditional topics in the physics classroom. This resource explains how to set up an investigation of them, and it provides you with the explanation of concepts.

This project investigates the phenomenon of apparent motion by making your own flip-book animations. This optical illusion experiment, while fun and short, will prove to be a very eye opening experience.

A webpage on optical illusions, containing a grid of black squares, an elephant with four or five legs, and a picture with three faces in it.

An experiment in optical illusions. Understand how seeing is a joint effort between your eyes and your brain.

This resource contains some optical illusions that will boggle your mind as you try to figure them out.

An activity with an optical illusion that will have your eyes seeing a cluster of boxes but is it really boxes? In this activity, explore this illusion and what happens to trick your brain to seeing what it sees.

An activity with an optical illusion that will have your eyes seeing it and then not seeing it! Learn the science behind what makes the dot on the page "disappear".

Create an optical illusion with this activity. Understand what your brain interprets if it receives conflicting information from your eyes.

Create this optical illusion that incorporates what is known as the waterfall effect.

Recreate this optical illusion using two parabolic mirrors to make it appear like an object is in the center, when it is really just its image. This experiment requires special equipment which may need to be purchased.

Explore the behavior of light as it reflects off a concave mirror in this optical illusion.

The moon appears bigger at the horizon just as it is rising over the treetops, than it does later in the evening when it is overhead. This is because our perception of its size changes based on where it is in the sky. In this human...

Do you know how to make a bright spot brighter? In this activity, your eyes will send conflicting information to the brain. See how you perceive what is on the paper.

Using the property of reflection, this activity will have students appearing to defy gravity.

In this activity observe how light sources flash as you give them a raspberry. As you complete the activity, make a conclusion about what is wiggling the lights or you.