With the millions of calories all of us end up consuming over Christmas one thing we should definitely do is drink a little more water. That’s why I called this experiment Hydration Motivation, a science experiment you can do in seconds and might motivate you to grab a glass of water.

What do I need?

• Glasses
• Striped piece of paper (image info below!)
• Blu Tac

STEP1 – The simplest way to make your striped image is to download and print the image from:
www.sublimescience.com/stripe

STEP2 – Use your Blu Tac to stick your striped image to the wall.

STEP3 – Hold your glass of water up to the striped image and look through it, weird, huh?!

STEP4 – Test it’s not just the glass that’s causing this by testing again with a different glass.

STEP5 – Start to think about what you think might be causing this?

What’s going on?

Weird, right? Not what you were expecting?

Try holding an empty glass up to your striped image. What happens?

This experiment all comes down to the refraction of light. All that means is how light ‘bends’ when it passes through different materials. As the light passes from the air to the glass to the water and back to the glass and the air the light bends which is what causes your stripes to look so unusual.

More Fun Please! - Experiment like a real scientist!

• Try this experiment using an empty glass, what happens?
• Does this experiment only work for stripes? What other patterns could you try?
• Would using hot or cold water make any difference of none at all?