The world's first website for IR imaging experiments launched

We have launched the world's first website dedicated to IR imaging experiments for science and engineering education: http://energy.concord.org/ir.

This website publishes the experiments I have designed to showcase IR visualizations of natural phenomena. Each experiment comes with an illustration of the setup and a short IR video recorded from the experiment. Dozens of IR videos will be produced and added to the website as we move along. Teachers and students may use these YouTube videos without purchasing IR cameras (the price for the basic versions of which have come under $900 in the United States).

Among other things, we are developing a unique approach that uses affordable handheld IR cameras to visualize unseen energy transfer processes occurring in easy-to-do science experiments. Using this approach, thermal energy can be readily visualized through an IR camera. Other types of energy that convert into thermal energy can be inferred from thermal energy visualizations. This allows many invisible physical, chemical, and biological processes that absorb or release heat to be discovered and investigated.

By lowering the technical barrier to authentic scientific inquiry and presenting compelling visualizations of energy flows and transformations in everyday life, the tool will enable more students in diverse schools to develop a deeper understanding of energy concepts and their broad applications.