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The Early Years: Does Light Go Through It?

Science and Children—March 2009

Words give us the power to describe our world and how we experience it. Any time we classify something, we give it a name to distinguish it from all others of its kind. Like the buttons on a kitchen blender which says “mix” in five or six different ways, there is more than one word to describe if or how light travels through a material. Opaque, translucent, and transparent are appropriate for young children because they can be distinguished by observation and without measuring. In this following activity, children test the opacity of various materials and learn about light, part of National Science Education Content Standard B: Physical Science.
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