Sundogs Visible Around Sun

• How do sundogs happen?

• What do you think will happen when the sun passes through ice crystals rather than water?
• What times of year do you think would be best for seeing sundogs, and why? 

Students could:

• Conduct an experiment of putting a paper with an arrow behind a glass of water and then adding water in the glass and seeing how the arrow changes direction which shows the refraction of light.
• Explore items set out around the room for students to find. Examples include foil, wax paper, lampshade, mirror, clear plastic bag, cardboard, sponge, sunglasses, block, sheer fabric and sequins. Give each group of students a flashlight to use as their beam of light to shine on each object they are observing. Have students go around the room and look for examples of items that reflect light, absorb light, refract light, and transmit light, and write them down as well as their observations in their notebook to share with classmates at the end of the search.
• Create hands-on vocabulary notebooks to record observations. Talk about transparent, translucent and opaque and define them in their notebooks. In order to make this a more visual and hands-on experience, place examples taped in their notebook as well to give them visuals. For instance, tape a piece of plastic wrap for transparent, a piece of wax paper for translucent, and a piece of cardstock for opaque. You can do this with "reflect," "absorb," and "refract" as well, using foil, black colored paper, and a drawing of a lens.
• Use prisms to create rainbows and learn more about the refraction of light and what happens to light when it reflects off of a glass prism. 

• PBS LearningMedia | 60 Second Science: Little Drops of Water: In this video, discover that little drops of water do different things depending where they fall. Little Drops of Water is a hands-on science exploration for young children and their teachers, parents or caregivers.
• Tom's of Maine | Five Cool Rainbow Facts for Kids: This website includes information about rainbows as well as sundogs. Students can compare them to each other based on the facts that they already know about both.
• The Science Penguin | Five Ideas for Teaching Light: This website includes ideas about how you might go about teaching concepts related to light for elementary aged kids. 

Phenomena submitted by Crystal Brummel and Abbie Kuiper.