Experiment with Things that Glow under a Black Light

As the title suggests, here is my list of things that glow under a black light. After you've read it, you can keep reading for an explanation of black lights and my program, or you could move on. Either way, thanks for reading:)

Things that Glow Under a Black Light:

Tonic water
Laundry detergent
Area around the dark spots of a banana
Highlighter ink
Security strip on a recent US $20
Irish Springs soap
Petroleum jelly
Canola or vegetable oil
White paper
White LEGO pieces
Glow in the dark paint
Glow sticks (alright the last two already glow in the dark, but they glow even brighter under a black light)
Tooth whitening products
and believe it or not, Monster energy drinks

Every month I get the chance to do science experiments at a local private school. Typically my library program happens before I go to the school, which gives me a chance to see what experiments will work well in a classroom setting. But this time, I got an idea for my library program from the school program.

Glow in the Dark Experiments was my topic last month, and while I was there, one of the students mentioned that they had been using black lights to identify certain minerals in rocks. He thought it would be cool for us to experiment with other things that glow under black lights. I agreed =D

I'm sure everyone is familiar with black lights, but I wasn't quite sure how they worked. Black lights are emitting two kinds of light; light we can see, and light we can't see. The light we can see is the purplish color, and the light we can't see is called ultraviolet light. This ultraviolet light (UVA) is the harmless cousin to the harmful ultraviolet light (UVB) that gives you a sunburn.

If something glows under a black light, it is because it contains phosphors. Phosphors are a substance that emit visible light when exposed to radiation. So they are absorbing the ultraviolet light from the black light, and converting it to visible light.

Turns out there are quite a few things that glow under a black light, and I figured I'd list them for you here. My time at the private school was mostly spent seeing what would glow and what wouldn't. If you want to do this program, I would suggest grabbing a mixture of things that glow and things that don't, and see what you see. Also be willing to test things that are around the room...