Teacher Guide: Color Absorption: Learning Objectives

Teacher Guide: Color Absorption
Learning Objectives
Students will…
 Observe colors produced by mixing of three primary colors of light.
o Yellow is produced by red and green light.
o Magenta is produced by red and blue light.
o Cyan (turquoise) is produced by blue and green light.
o White light is produced by blue, green, and red light.
 Discover what colors of light are transmitted and absorbed by a piece of tinted glass.
 Produce a variety of colors with combinations of colored glass.
Vocabulary
absorb, primary colors, reflect, transmit, transparent
Lesson Overview
The Color Absorption Gizmo allows students to mix and filter
colors of light. Students can use red, green, and blue lights
to see how different colors of light combine. Students can
also place pieces of tinted glass into the light box to create a
variety of colors.
The Student Exploration sheet contains three activities:

 Activity A – Students investigate absorption and
transmission of light through colored glass.
 Activity B – Students create interesting colors using
the lights and colored glass.
 Activity C – Students investigate the effects of
thickness and darkness of glass. Primary colors of light
Suggested Lesson Sequence
1. Pre-Gizmo activity: Color wheels ( 20 – 40 minutes)

Before you explore mixtures of light in the Color Absorption
Gizmo, investigate how the primary colors of pigment—cyan,
magenta, and yellow—can be combined to create other colors.
(Artists often use a slightly different system, substituting red for
magenta and blue for cyan.) Acrylic paints work well for this
activity; crayons, colored pencils, or markers are acceptable
alternatives. Each student can create a “color wheel” showing
how the colors combine. Students can also try to create other
interesting colors such as purple, brown, orange, teal, and gray.
The cyan, magenta, yellow system is used in color printing.
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2. Prior to using the Gizmo ( 10 – 15 minutes)
Before students are at the computers, pass out the Student Exploration sheets and ask
students to complete the Prior Knowledge Questions. Discuss student answers as a
class, but do not provide correct answers at this point. Afterwards, if possible, use a
projector to introduce the Gizmo and demonstrate its basic operations. Show students
how to take snapshots in the Gizmo and paste the images into a blank document.
3. Gizmo activities ( 15 – 20 minutes per activity)

Assign students to computers. Students can work individually or in small groups. Ask
students to work through the activities in the Student Exploration using the Gizmo.
Alternatively, you can use a projector and do the Exploration as a teacher-led activity.
4. Discussion questions ( 15 – 30 minutes)

As students are working or just after they are done, discuss the following questions:
 How is mixing of colors light similar to mixing paint? How is it different?
 When we look through a piece of colored glass, why do we see a particular
color? What is going on?
 How is colored glass related to an object that reflects light, such as a red apple or
a blue tee shirt?
 Why is water blue? Why is the sky blue? (See Science Background below.)
5. Follow-up activity: Colored Shadows ( 10 – 20 minutes)

Depending on what supplies are available, you can project red, green, and blue light
onto a screen using projectors or spotlights with colored gels (check your school’s drama
department). Darken the room as much as possible, and focus all three spotlights to
form a single colored circle of white light on a screen. Standing in front of the colored
spot, students will see yellow, magenta, and cyan shadows. Where these shadows
overlap, students will see red, blue, and green shadows. Turn each spotlight on and off.
Discuss how these shadows are formed and how they relate to what they observed in
the Gizmo. Experiment by placing colored objects in the lights. A red apple in blue or
green light will appear black. A yellow banana in blue light will also look gray or black.
Students can make their own “stained glass windows” using black construction paper
and colored cellophane or tissue paper. Students first cut holes in the black paper, then
tape cellophane over the holes. Students can create cyan, magenta, and yellow colors
by overlapping pieces of cellophane, and create darker colors by using multiple layers of
cellophane. Finished projects can be displayed in the classroom window.
Scientific Background
Light is a form of electromagnetic energy that can be transmitted through empty space. Light
can be thought of as a stream of particles or a wave, but most phenomena can be understood
based on the wave model. Light is classified by its wavelength, shown on the electromagnetic
spectrum below. Visible light has wavelengths between 380 and 720 nanometers.
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Everything we see is produced by visible light entering our eyes. This light can be emitted from
an object (e.g., the Sun), reflected from an object, or transmitted through an object. Colored
substances absorb some wavelengths of visible light and reflect or transmit others. (Note: When
we say an object reflects or transmits light of a certain wavelength, it actually absorbs that light
and then emits light of the same wavelength.)
A red apple, for example, absorbs green and blue light and reflects red light. A green bottle
absorbs red and blue light and transmits green light. A white object reflects or transmits all
visible light, while a black object absorbs all the colors of light, so no light is reflected or
transmitted to our eye. This explains why black objects heat up more quickly than white objects.
A set of primary colors can be combined to produce all

other colors. Many color combinations can be chosen for
use as primary colors. The most commonly used are red,
green, and blue (RGB) for light and cyan, magenta, yellow
(CMY) for printing. (Painters typically use red, yellow and
blue as their primary colors.)
Red and green light combine to make yellow, green and

blue light make cyan, and blue and red light make magenta.
All three colors combine to form white light. The images you
see on a color TV or computer screen are actually made
from thousands of tiny dots of red, green, and blue light. Mixing colors of light
An important contrast between mixing pigment and mixing light is that when pigments are
mixed, more and more light is absorbed and the color becomes darker. As more colors of light
are added together, the result is a brighter, whiter color.
Astronomy Connection: Why is the sky blue?

“Why is the sky blue” is a common question asked by many children. Surprisingly, it is a
question few adults can answer. The simplest reason that the sky appears blue is that air is very
slightly blue in color. If you look at just a little bit of air, such as the air inside a room, the blue
color won’t be very apparent. But when you look through many kilometers of air in the sky, the
blue color becomes very strong. This is analogous to stacking many pieces of lightly tinted glass
together to make a darker color.
Earth’s atmosphere is composed of several gases (78% nitrogen gas, 21% oxygen). When light
passes through air, some of the light is bent by the molecules of gas in the air. Blue light, which
has a very short wavelength, is bent more often than other colors of light such as green, yellow,
and red. This process, called Rayleigh scattering, causes the blue light waves to bounce from
gas molecule to gas molecule through the atmosphere, giving the sky a blue appearance.
Selected Web Resources

How light works: http://science.howstuffworks.com/light1.htm
Science of light: http://www.learner.org/teacherslab/science/light/index.html
Colored shadows: http://www.exploratorium.edu/snacks/colored_shadows.html
Stained glass: https://www.misterart.com/projectsheet/stained-glass.html
Why is the sky blue? http://www.sciencemadesimple.com/sky_blue.html
Heat Absorption Gizmo: http://www.explorelearning.com/gizmo/id?655
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Teacher Guide: Color Absorption

The Student Exploration sheet contains three activities:

Suggested Lesson Sequence

1. Pre-Gizmo activity: Color wheels ( 20 – 40 minutes)

3. Gizmo activities ( 15 – 20 minutes per activity)

4. Discussion questions ( 15 – 30 minutes)

5. Follow-up activity: Colored Shadows ( 10 – 20 minutes)

A set of primary colors can be combined to produce all

Red and green light combine to make yellow, green and

Astronomy Connection: Why is the sky blue?

Selected Web Resources

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