Groups will take turns completing Activity 1 and Activity 2. Students will record their findings at each station for a class discussion.
Activity 1:
Fill a glass with water and set it on the desk so that it is lined up with the edge of the white sheet of paper.
Shine the light source onto the glass, experimenting with different positions and angles until you see a rainbow on the piece of paper.
Experiment with different shapes of glasses and record your findings noting any similarities and/or differences.
Write down why you think you are or are not noticing any changes.
Activity 2:
Using the compass, draw a circle on the piece of paper and on the cardboard. Then cut those out.
With the ruler, split the circle into 3 equal sections. Colour the sections using the green, red, and blue crayons. Paste the piece of paper onto the cardboard.
Punch twoholeswith your pencil near the center, leaving approximately 6cm between the two.
Loop the string through the holes and tie the ends together, as shown in this image:
Center the cardboard on the string and twist it until both sides of the string are twisted on your fingers.
Observe what happens to the colours on the wheel as you pull the strings to unwind them. Ask students torecordtheir observations and explain what they see.
After the students are done, discuss as a class the findings.Explore potential explanations.
For Activity 1 – Encourage students to think about the purpose of the water.What was it doing to the white light?
Observations may include the following: the water was bending the light; the water was splitting the light into its constituent colours.
For Activity 2 – Encourage students to think about the rotating wheel as a combination of the coloursblending into white.
Look Fors
Do students recognize white as a combination of all the colours of the spectrum?
Are students making explicit connections between the two activities?
Have students understood light can be split into their base components or added together to form different experiences for our eyes (colours)?