CENCO® AP Physics Lab 2.18: Refracting Light with Lenses

Study rays refracting through various transparent media, then determine the focal length of a lens.

Introducing the new CENCO AP Physics lab series!

Ideal for AP Physics 1 and 2, AP Physics C, IB DP Physics, and advanced/honors physics courses, each of the 35 experiments is aligned with the revised College Board AP curriculum. These innovative labs go way beyond traditional exercises, turning real to world scenarios into true guided to inquiry investigations. Students are given a goal, but the investigation is driven by their ideas. As they draw conclusions, students report their results using the Claim to Evidence to Reasoning model. The teacher guides and student manuals are authored and reviewed by AP Physics teachers with decades of combined experience, so you can trust the setups to be successful in your classroom. All labs come complete with instructions and materials for one lab group of 2 to 4 students. For your convenience, labs are packaged to allow you to purchase only what is required for each experiment.

In this three-part activity, students will explore how light travels across both planar and curved boundaries. A trapezoidal prism is used to discover differences between objects with parallel and non-parallel sides. Students also discover the critical angle for total internal reflection. In the second and third parts, students compare the convergent/divergent behavior of concave and convex lenses. They measure the focal length and magnification of a convex lens.