Home Archived My best lesson - Remove shades of grey from colour knowledge Back My best lesson - Remove shades of grey from colour knowledge 13th February 2015, 12:00am Gavin Rayner Share My best lesson - Remove shades of grey from colour knowledge https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/my-best-lesson-remove-shades-grey-colour-knowledge Copy Link Starting a lesson on refraction by showing the video for the song Roy G Biv by They Might Be Giants often takes students by surprise. But they soon see my reasoning when they realise the lyrics are all about the colour spectrum. I sometimes sing along, and occasionally the students join in too.With this and some introductory questions concluded, it’s time to get the equipment out. The pupils need a triangular prism, a ray box and a comb. Turn the lights off and black out the windows, then get the class to project a rainbow on to a screen. The students are always impressed by how the white light turns into all the colours of the spectrum.Next, ask pupils to make a colour wheel by colouring a sectioned circle red, green and blue. Get them to carefully attach the wheel to a 9V motor and ask them what they will see when it spins. They will probably have got the general idea by now, but temper their enthusiasm by explaining that the colours they have chosen are not likely to be pure so the result may not be a pure white (it always comes out grey).That’s all the essential curriculum learning taken care of, so next I like to blow my students’ minds. Many children will never have seen a Magic Eye picture - you can even get Gifs now in which a 3D image appears to move. Provide some Magic Eye pictures and watch how the pupils delve into the colour spectrum with real enthusiasm.Finally, ask the pupils to recreate Isaac Newton’s famous experiment where he recombined the spectrum from a prism, using a second prism to make white light once more - proving that the prism did not add the colour.Gavin Rayner teaches at Saint Nicholas School in Old Harlow, EssexDownload the plan for this lessonTell us about your best lessonEmail jon.severs@tesglobal.com Want to keep reading for free? Register with Tes and you can read two free articles every month plus you'll have access to our range of award-winning newsletters. Register Log in Keep reading for just £1 per month You've reached your limit of free articles this month. Subscribe for £1 per month for three months and get: Unlimited access to all Tes magazine content Exclusive subscriber-only stories Award-winning email newsletters Subscribe now Nothing found Recent Most read Most shared Why every school should (not) use setting Teaching & Learning 24 April 2024 5 ways to use your alumni to engage current pupils Leadership 24 April 2024 Poor mental health ‘fuelling’ absence crisis, DfE told News 24 April 2024 Most schools train leaders to tackle rising parental complaints News 22 April 2024 CfE: Secondaries ‘starting again’ as pupils lack ‘common knowledge base’ News 16 April 2024 GCSEs 2024: Exam dates, timetables and key information Analysis 9 April 2024 5 ways to support reading for pleasure in the classroom Teaching & Learning 22 April 2024 Most schools train leaders to tackle rising parental complaints News 22 April 2024 A simple but radical new way to assess writing Teaching & Learning 22 April 2024
