underwater viewer

I love projects that I can play with a lot. I really wanted to do this because it looked like fun. We got the idea from my second favorite website, Education.com. It would be my favorite except that even though they have fun stuff to do and we won their contest last Fall, they also have lots of school worksheets. They are fun to do, but they are still school. The project was for preschoolers but we thought if we took video under our pool it would make it more for kids my age. http://www.education.com/activity/article/underwater-viewer/

What you need for this is a coffee can or oatmeal container, plastic wrap and rubber bands. It is really easy to make. Just cover the open ends of the container with wrap and make it tight with rubber bands.

It is hard to see down under water because the light refracts in the water and in the ripples on the water surface. The viewer lets us see what is underwater with all that happening. In my refraction experiment you could really see how much the light bends in still water. The moving water adds more distortion to it.

We did have some problems with the video because the sun was so bright we couldn't see the image of what we were recording on the camera monitor. When we uploaded it to the computer, I was really happy to see that so much of it came out great. We really could see the bottom of the pool easy in the video. I still use it. Mom says we can make another one out of a coffee can and it won't get soggy. We don't drink coffee so I had to wait for my awesome granny to give us a can.