Frozen Shadows Room

What's Happening

Press the flash button, walk over to the wall, pose, and, flash! your shadow remains on the wall. The material on the wall of our Frozen Shadow Room absorbs light energy and re-emits it for several seconds. Where you made a shadow, less light hits the wall and less light is re-emitted. Your shadow remains after you move away.

Discovery Question & Experiments

Try This

Press the button and walk over to the frozen shadow wall. Take a very silly pose, wait for the flash, and step away. What do you see?

Try This

Try pressing the button again. Does it flash right away? Why do you think it takes a minute to flash again?

Try This

Do you have a coin in your pocket? If you toss it in the air when the flash activates, will it capture the shadow of the coin in the air?

Try This

Have a friend stand right in front of you. Hold your arms out straight above your head. Have your friend hold his or her arms out straight on each side. Will your shadow have four arms?

Create Something

At Home

Make yourself into a sundial!

All you need is a sunny day, assorted colors of sidewalk chalk, and a friend to help you with your observations.

Find a spot on your sidewalk that is sunny all day. Starting at 8:00 a.m., have a friend trace your shadow with the sidewalk chalk. Make an ‘X’. Write the time down next to the shadow tracing. Now wait one hour, stand in the exact same place and have your shadow traced again, this time with a different color. Trace your shadow every hour and write the time next to it for the rest of the day. How does the shape of your shadow change during the day? If you stand in the same place the next day, can you tell the time based on what your shadow looks like?

At School

Lesson: Make a shadow puppet theater.

Materials:
Tri-folding presentation board (can be purchased in an office supply store), white cloth, tape, knife, stiff grayboard or tagboard, brass fasteners (brads), hole punch, scissors, straws, and a bright light (slide show projectors, floodlights, or overhead projectors work well).

How To:

Theater:
Cut a large square hole out of the middle panel of the presentation board. Cut a white piece of fabric to fit the hole and tape it on from the backside of the board.

Puppets:
Cut people or animal shapes out of grayboard or tagboard and tape them to straws. Try making moving joints by punching holes and attaching arms & legs using brads. Tape straws to the arms & legs so you can move them.

Performance:
Now put your puppets between the light and your screen. Your puppets will cast a black shadow. Duck down so that your shadow isn't showing. Your audience will enjoy the show from the other side of the screen.

Academic Concepts:

The Arts - Create, Present, Perform