Resources What we'll learn about Find out what happens when you combine colors of light, Discover similarities and differences between mixing lights and mixing pigments.

What you'll need

• flashlights and batteries
• paper towel/cardboard tubes
• tape
• colored cellophane pieces (at least red, green, and blue, plus yellow if possible)
• White posterboard/cardboard
• scissors
• journals/pens

Getting started

• Rig the flashlights to shine through the cardboard tube and a piece of cellophane.
• Ask the kids which colors they think will result when they shine the lights together on the white paper.
• Have them mix two and three (and four) colors of light together to see what results.
• After each unexpected result, ask the kids to revise their predictions as to the remaining mixtures.
• The addition of two primary colors makes a secondary color - which are the primary and which are the secondary colors of light?
  

What next

Creation and invention:

• Can you make a flashlight with a colored light bulb shine white? How?
  
• Make a chart/wheel that compares mixing of light and of pigment, or predicts the results when two are mixed.
  

Discussion:

• What happens when you move the light closer to or farther from the screen?
  
• What happens when you add a primary light to a secondary light? What about two secondary lights?
  
• How can you make orange (Secondary pigment)? Violet? Black? (add/remove intensity - move closer or farther from screen)
  
• Why does colored light mix differently from pigment? (pigments have absorbed some light and reflected the rest, what you see is the reflected light)
  
• What happens when you shine colored light on colored paper, cloth, etc.? Can you predict the result?
  
• What common device uses this mixing of light? (tv, computer monitor)
  
  
  

Resources

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