Srudents Make Their Own Magnifying Glass

The only thing you need for this lesson is: wire, crayons or round sticks, and water.

1. Twist the wire around a pencil or pen to make a small loop. Then remove the pencil from the wire.
2. Dip the loop in water. When you take the wire out of the water, it will create a bubble in between the loop (due to surface tension). You can add a little soap and it will create a tougher film around the loop. The only trick to this is to make sure your loop is small (hint use a pencil).
3. Carefully hold the loop over newspaper and you can see the letters through the water. This will enlarge any print.
4. Let the students play with it. However, only give the students a small piece of newspaper because they might get wet easily.

Background Information:
      Talk about how there are things around us that we can not see, but that doesn't mean that they aren't there. Early humans did not know what bacteria was or a virus. However, people still became sick. The use of hand lenses helped though. This is when lenses were created.
     Early people then started to think about what kind of things they could find when objects were magnified. So, as the art of glass making matured, glass could also be curved just right to make it magnify.