I second Adele's comments on minerals; many will fluoresce quite
beautifully under UV.  Also fluorescein will glow green under UV
excitation.  Basically get a low-powered UV wand light and some
fluorescent minerals, maybe a little vial of fluorescein (it's quite
safe, just don't drink it), and some white paper (the bleached paper
fibers will glow brightly) and maybe scribble with highlighters on
parts of the paper to show that glow as well.

Craig

On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 11:00 AM, Adele Vincent
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> hi John
>
> What about rocks instead of wood? Many minerals look very different under UV
> light and should be much easier to get your hands on.
>
> cheers
> Adele
>
>
> John Oreopoulos wrote:
>
> This is not really a microscopy related question, but I figure there should
> be people here who would be able to answer this query. I have a friend from
> another lab who came to me last Friday and asked me if there was a simple
> experiment/demonstration that could be set up to demonstrate the concept of
> fluorescence to high school students. I couldn't think of one off the top of
> my head. The only thing that came to mind was the bit about using
> Fluorescein dye to make the Chicago river look green on St. Patrick's day,
> but I don't know if there's a cheap source of Floourscein out there or if
> it's safe to use with younger students. The only other thing I could recall
> was some basic experiment that involved pulling dyes from a commercial
> highlighter pen and showing that they are fluorescent somehow, but I can't
> remember much more than that. Basically, he needs to show that with some
> substance you can put light of one color in and get a different color back
> out. Didn't George Stokes originally discover fluorescence that way
> somehow?
> Lastly, one beautiful demonstration that I can remember was given by
> Professor David Jameson a couple of years ago at the Biophysical Society
> meeting where in his talk that detailed the history of fluorescence he
> reproduced a phenomenon that was observed long ago in ancient Mexico where
> the wood ("kidney wood") of a specific Mexican tree when dissolved in water
> created an amazing blue glow under UV light. I don't think it would be easy
> to get this wood in Canada, however.
> If anyone knows of a simple (and cheap) way to demonstrate fluorescence,
> please do let me know.
>
> John Oreopoulos, BSc,
>
> PhD Candidate
>
> University of Toronto
>
> Institute For Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering
>
> Centre For Studies in Molecular Imaging
>
> Tel: W:416-946-5022
>
>
> --
>
> Adele Vincent, PhD
>
> NHMRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow
>
> Laboratory of Molecular Neurobiology
>
> Menzies Research Institute
>
> Tasmania, Australia
>
> ph:  +61 3 6226 7195
>
> fax: +61 3 6226 2679
>
> Mailing address:
>
> Private Bag 24
>
> University of Tasmania
>
> TAS 7001
>
> Australia