Make a Pinhole Camera

Make a Pinhole Camera
This activity will introduce students to a basic
property of light and how it is used in everyday life.
Using the pinhole camera, students will be able to
understand how the camera image is inverted because light travels (with only a few exceptions)
in straight lines.
The instructions for making the camera were adapted from the Columbia Education Center Web site,
Lesson Plans and Web Activies, “Making a Pinhole
Camera” by Patricia Willett, Designs for Learning
Differences, Albuquerque, New Mexico, at
http://www.col-ed.org/cur/sci/sci01.txt
(accessed November 15, 2010).

Time Required
One forty-five-minute class period

Materials Required
• Salt or oatmeal box, one for each group
• Shoe box, one for each group
• Wax paper
• Rubber band, one for each box
• Pin
• Sticky tape
• Scissors
• Sheets of black paper and white paper

Procedure
• Divide the students into smaller groups and
explain that each group will make a pinhole
camera and observe what happens as they
look at objects.
• To make the camera:
° Using a pin, punch a small hole in the center of the salt or oatmeal box’s bottom.
° Remove the box top, put wax paper over
the open end, and use a rubber band to
secure it in place.
• Have students point the camera at brightly lit
objects and explain what they see.
° The observer’s eyes will need to be about
twelve inches from the wax-paper screen to
see a sharp image.
° If the camera is used in a lighted place, the
observer’s eyes must be shielded from light.
• To make a shield, roll a sheet of black
paper into a large tube around the end
of the box with the wax-paper screen
and secure it with sticky tape.
• Look into the paper shield’s open end to
see the images on the screen.
• Have students explain what they see on the
camera’s wax-paper screen.
• Have students explain how they moved the
camera to:
° Make the image move right, left, up,
and down.
° Make the image appear smaller and larger.
• Have students describe what happens when
the camera is still and the image moves.
• Ask students how they would make a brighter,
sharper image appear on the screen.
• Have student try these additional activities and
explain what happens:
° Change the pinhole size.
° Line the inside of the box with black paper.
° Line the inside of the box with white paper.
° Use a longer or larger box such as a
shoe box.
° Use paper other than wax paper for
the screen.