Lights OFF to celebrate Lights ON Afterschool

Lights OFF to celebrate... Lights On!

October 17, 2013

Yesterday, 1 million Americans are came together all over the country, for the nation’s largest rally for afterschool programs at more than 8,000 events worldwide... celebrating Lights On Afterschool. Children in hundreds of programs are coloring images of light bulbs and decorating their programs with their artwork to tout the importance of afterschool enrichment. At Children’s Choice in Albuquerque, New Mexico, we wanted to celebrate this event, learn about science, and kick things up a notch by doing a Lights OFF Afterschool project.

We turned the lights OFF to study the science of GLOWING things.  We printed out the lightbulb templates available free at www.afterschoolalliance.org. Instead of coloring the light bulbs with crayons, kids painted their light bulbs with the chemicals inside of glow sticks, which caused the light bulbs to glow through the process of chemiluminescence.

Chemiluminescence: Glow sticks are housings for two chemical solutions. When you bend a plastic glow stick, a glass vial breaks open and the two solutions flow together, combine and rearrange themselves to form new compounds. The atoms begin emitting photons - causing a release of light energy. Special dyes give the light different colors. The energy released during that reaction produces luminescence that can last for many hours. 

They also coated, the light bulb templates with luminous zinc sulfide (also known by Steve Spangler as Glow Powder, available at www.stevespanglerscience.com). The glow powder made their light bulbs glow in the dark through the process of phosphorescence. 

Phosphorescence is a type of GLOWING in response to LIGHT energy. A light bulb excites atoms in the phosphor, causing them to store light energy. When we turned the lights OFF to study the science of GLOWING things, these atoms release this energy.  

Science Standards Addressed:

- Children know that light is a form of energy, Recognize that energy can be stored in many ways (phosphorescence).

- Children know that changes to matter may be chemical or physical and when two or more substances are combined, a new substance may be formed with properties that are different from those of the original substance.