Bright Tube Experiments

You will need: a poster tube, a piece of white paper, sticky tape or rubber band, small torch, small pieces of reflective material, small piece of fluorescent material the torch and materials are available in our Be Bright Resource Pack

(a) What is Reflective?
Put one end of the tube on top of a piece of reflective material which is on a flat surface (table, chair or floor). Shine the torch through the other end and look inside. Q: What can you see?
The darkness of the tube is like night and the torch is like car headlights so this shows how reflective materials show up at night.

Q: What do you see if you look in without shining the torch? This is like night time when there are no car headlights. What does reflective material need to make it show up at night?

Q: Now put the reflective material on a table without the tube and shine the torch onto the reflective material. This is like a sunny day. Is the reflective material as bright as when you shone on it through the dark tube? This shows how reflective materials don’t work as well in daytime as they do at night.

(b) What is Fluorescent?
To see how fluorescent materials work really well we need to make the inside of the tube like misty, dull or fading daylight (dusk). Place a piece of A4 white paper over and around one end of the tube to cover it. Hold the covered end of the tube up to the light (eg sunny window or a torch); this makes the inside of the tube dull but not dark. Look through the other end making sure your face doesn’t touch the tube (or it will block out too much of your ‘dull’ light). Now place a small piece of fluorescent fabric at the end of the tube on the inside of the white paper (but not covering all the paper).
 
Q: Can you easily see the fluorescent material?
Now repeat using different materials: dark paper, bright coloured paper, reflective material, comparing each to fluorescent material.
Q: Which shows up best in ‘dusk’? If you are out in poor daylight, dark colours are the worst to wear, bright colours are better and fluorescent colours are best. Reflective materials don’t show up well in daylight or near dusk.