This week we kicked off our classes at Southwark for the fall! For our 1st class, we wanted to get a sense of what the students you about color. We did a small survey asking about tint, shadows, the color wheel, etc. It turned out that our 1st class didn’t know as much yet, but some of our 2nd class was from last year and knew most of the answers. I’m excited to see how they will learn throughout this year and test their knowledge in a few months.
For our activity, we did a little science experiment. We split the classes into group of two or 3 and gave them 2 cups of water and a paper towel. We had them decide what color they wanted to make and pick which two primary colors they needed to use to make that color. They made each cup of water a different color with food dye and then placed each end of the paper towel in each cup. The water immediately gravitated up the towel, bring the color with it. The 2 colors mixed at the top and the students got to see if they were correct in guessing which colors would be created.
While the water was moving up the paper towels, we handed them cutout chemistry vials and had them create a colorwheel based gradient. Basically, they had to color it in with the colors of the rainbow in order. We collected these when they were done to be “graded” and to see how they will improve by our last class.
The students really enjoyed this 1st experiment. It was fun to watch their reactions as they saw the water move up the paper towel and mix together. I also enjoyed engaging with them, not only about colors, but about where they were from, what languages they spoke, and what they looked forward to this year.
