Mt. Pleasant Classical Academy

On Sunday evening Michael completed his two chemistry labs and they were both fun.  So much fun that he insisted doing them again this evening with Mark.   I think it is something you could easily do with your kids too.   The one piece of equipment that is needed, that you probable do not have is a linear diffraction grating.

They aren’t that expensive however the quantity you’d have to purchase is huge (50 at the place I found).

We soaked a cotton ball in rubbing alcohol, moved the alcohol far away, placed the soaked cotton ball on Al foil,  dried our hands, and lit it on fire.  We looked at the flame.  

Next we assembled 3 index cards to form a narrow slit through which we could see the flame.  These were held in place and Michael stationed his linear diffrac  tion grating 100cm from the index cards.

I was going to share exactly what we did, however let me just say that this experiment could go wrong, very wrong, with fire and flames, and big flames,…..

We were able, in our kitchen to look at the diffraction of a red LED, green LED, candle light, and finally an alcohol soaked with salt cotton ball set on fire.  The light was diffracted, wavelengths measured, and fun science was had by all.