University of Florida Science Outreach Program
Make a Water Magnifier!
Introduction: Small things can be magnified to appear larger than they really are with the help
of magnifying glasses and microscopes. A water droplet can act as a simple magnifier and
magnify the object behind it.
Objective: Students will be able to make their own magnifiers out of a drop of water. They will
learn how a magnifier works by exploring some of the properties of water, such as its ability to
bend rays of light and to form spherical droplets under the influence of surface tension.
Materials:
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Piece of glass or plastic
Newspaper
Crayon
Eyedropper
Water
Safety:
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Always be careful when handling glass and sharp objects.
Procedure:
1. Get a small piece of clear glass or plastic. (A microscope slide is ideal.) Put the slide on
top of a piece of newspaper that has small print on it.
2. Use a crayon to draw a small circle on the slide. Look closely at the print that is within
the circle.
3. With an eyedropper, carefully put a drop of water in the circle.
4. Then look straight down through the top of the water drop; the printing on the paper will
appear magnified!
As an extension activity, students can examine salt, sugar, leaves, etc.
Discussion:
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What do you notice about the shape of the water drop on top of the glass?
What is the shape of magnifiers?
How do water and magnifiers bend light?
How does your eye perceive the magnification?
Surface tension causes water drops to be spherical because the molecules inside a drop are
attracted to each other in all directions, from the surface inward. The curvature observed in water
is also a property of magnifiers. The more curved the magnifier, the stronger its magnification
because it is bending more light in a shorter space.
As light enters the drop of water, it slows down and bends into a new path. Also, the rounded
shape of the drop bends the light outwards. As the light spreads out, the image that you see gets
larger.
Humans perceive objects because light rays hit the objects and bounce off. Magnifiers take those
light rays and bend them inward to focus on a point in space somewhere above the magnifier.
Think of this tightly focused beam of light as a tightly-packed stream of information. By moving
the magnifier toward and away from the object, you can refine where the point of magnification
strikes your eye. When the point strikes your eye, the lenses inside your eye (such as the cornea)
"unpack" all this extra detail and project it onto your retina, thus the object seems larger than it
does to the naked eye.
Source: This lab is a modified version of an activity from the website education.com that goes
by the same name.