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A Light Snack: Cookie Box Spectrometers

Condition: New activity

Celebrate the contributions of women astronomers and make your own spectrometer using a cookie or cereal box and diffraction grating slides.

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Hints for uses in your library	You may need to troubleshoot your spectroscope. If you don’t see a broadband of colors, try rotating the diffraction grating 90° (1/4 turn). If the slit is too wide, use pieces of black electrical tape to make it narrower and crisper.
Related Links	"How a Team of Female Astronomers Revolutionized Our Understanding of Stars" "Annie Jump Cannon - Girl Hero of the Stars" The Electromagnetic Spectrum Wave Behaviors Diffraction facts for kids Diffraction: Light can bend around edges. Diffraction Light Is Waves: Crash Course Physics Traveling Waves: Crash Course Physics Spectra Interference: Crash Course Physics Light: Crash Course Astronomy Bill Nye the Science Guy (Light and Color) The Science of Rainbows What is Color? Analyzing Light: Southern Crab Nebula Analyzing Light: Southern Crab Nebula
Originating Source	L. Mayo, E. DeVore, NASA: The Science of the Sun
Related Books [Suggest a book]	Astronomy: Cool women in space by Anita Yasuda and Lena Chandhok Light : shadows, mirrors, and rainbows by Natalie M Rosinsky; Sheree Boyd All the colors of the rainbow by Allan Fowler Light Makes a Rainbow by Sharon Coan (Also available in Spanish ) Light is all around us by Wendy Pfeffer and Paul Meisel What are light waves? by Robin Johnson Light Waves by David A Adler The science of light waves by Robin Johnson Waves of light and sound by Shirley Smith Duke Color and wavelengths by Samantha Bell and Jeff Bane

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