Curated OER
Colors
Students learn about the Impressionist painters' use of color and how it connected to early nineteenth century scientific theories about color. In this colors lesson plan, students explore combinations of primary and secondary colors,...
Curated OER
Flipping Butterflies: Triadic Colors and Symmetry
Second graders create symmetrical butterfly wings. In this symmetry lesson, 2nd graders observe butterfly wings and create their own. They make both sides symmetrical and mix primary colors to make secondary colors.
Curated OER
Color the Snow
Are your teaching in a cold and snowy environment? If so, then try out this fun activity with your class. You mix a variety of colors in large jars to show learners the difference between primary and secondary colors, then let them mix...
Royal Society of Chemistry
Vanadium
Introduce your chemistry scholars to the periodic table's Goddess of Beauty! Through an interactive that highlights the transition metal vanadium, learners discover the colors produced in solution as vanadium changes oxidation state....
Curated OER
Watercolor Rainbows
Who doesn't love a rainbow? Little ones adore them, so why not make rainbows the subject of your next art project. Your class can use watercolor to paint rainbows. As they do, have them identify the colors in the rainbow, talk about how...
Curated OER
The Photoelectric Effect in Photocells
Illuminate your physics class with this examination of a photovoltaic cell. Teach the structure and operation of the device using a diagram. Then make a human-powered, larger-than-life sized model of a PV cell. Learners become electrons...
Curated OER
Light, Colors, and Vision
Third graders experience optic illusions by creating flipbooks. In this optics lesson, 3rd graders view a demonstration of the workings of rods and cones using a camera. They are shown an optical illusion and work to create their own...
Nuffield Foundation
Investigating How We See Colour
Can you eyes be fooled into seeing colors that aren't actually there? Budding scientists view a presentation that addresses this topic. They explore how their eyes interpret color through the retinas and messages sent to the brain. They...
Curated OER
The Magic School Bus Makes a Rainbow
Students learn along with Ms. Frizzle's class. For this Magic School Bus lesson plan, students spin separate colors into a new color just as the Magic School Bus kids did.
Exploratorium
Blue Sky
Use a container full of water as a prism and show that as light is bent, the individual colors from different wavelengths become visible. This explains why the sky appears to be blue midday, and why as the sun nears the horizon, it looks...
Curated OER
Communicating Color
Students identify basic colors by their proper names. They explain the process of creating the color wheel and explore the origins and catagories of complex colors.
Curated OER
Colors: Primary and Secondary
Students explore primary and secondary colors. In this lesson on light and color, students complete four different activities which include mixing colors, creating secondary colors from primary colors and observing the colors in a bubble.
Exploratorium
Penny Battery
Use pennies to light an LED. Class members follow the provided directions to build a multi-celled battery powered by pennies. Using stacks of pennies of varying heights, pupils control the voltage of the battery to light...
Curated OER
Shrinky Dinks® Palettes
Here is a fun and clever lesson for teaching physics classes how to calculate wavelength if given the energy and frequency data. On a worksheet, they compute wavelengths using a table of information that you provide. On a paper palette,...
Merck KGaA (Darmstadt, Germany)
EMD PTE
You can't tell by the title, but this is a functional periodic table of elements. Incorporating bright colors, lucid text, and easily operated features, this application serves as a valuable reference tool for your chemistry class.
Berkshire Museum
Camouflage!: Collecting Data and Concealing Color
Help young scholars see the important role camouflage plays in the survival of animals with a fun science lesson. Starting with an outdoor activity, children take on the role of hungry birds as they search for worms represented by...
Curated OER
Now You See Me, Now You Don't
Bioluminescence fascinates most upper elementary scientists. Display images of different glowing deep-sea organisms and discuss their environment. Young biologists then experiment with images and different colors of filtered light. In...
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Some DNA Does Not Encode Protein
Roy John Britten easily earned a PhD in nuclear physics—but he found painting with water colors too difficult. Young scientists learn about Britten's life, career, and research with an online interactive. They read a biography, view...
University of Colorado
Graphing the Rainbow
Here's a colorful resource about spectra. An intriguing lesson teaches pupils about diffraction grating and about absorption and emission spectra. They see how to represent spectra using line plots and try out this skill in a matching...
American Chemical Society
Chemical Reactions and Color Change
Colors are more than just a pretty effect. Learners explore what color change means in terms of chemical properties and reactions. They create a pH solution using cabbage leaves and observe the changes when acids and bases are added.
Curated OER
Benham's Disk
Seeing is believing! Or is it? With this simple experiment, young scientists can explore the concept of visual perception. Attach Benham's disk to a rotating appliance such as a hand drill; As it spins, the black lines appear to be...
Curated OER
Nature Art
In this nature art lesson, students take a nature walk and collect items with different sizes, textures and colors. Students use the items they collect to make a collage.
American Institute of Architects
Architecture: It's Elementary!—First Grade
Build an interest and appreciation for architecture in your young learners with this fun 10-lesson art unit. Engaging children in using their five senses, the class first observes the environment around them, paying...
Curated OER
Ping!
Using "mystery bathymetry" shoeboxes, young explorers simulate sonar action to map out the topography of an un-viewable landscape. This classic activity helps physical oceanography learners understand how sonar works. It would be...